Roberto Lerio outwits Jason Cooper to become Australian bantamweight champion - Boxing News
Roberto Lerio, the former Australian Super bantamweight champion, collected an easy victory over the Aussie rookie Jason Cooper, the current Australia - Queensland State featherweight champion, by collecting a split decision in his favour and grabbed the
vacant Australian bantamweight title, in a 10-round bout held on April 14, 2012.
The ring for the event was stretched at Norths Rugby League Club situated in Kallangur, Queensland, Australia and the above duo headlined the pay-per-view. The night was promoted by Damien Smith of Deception Bay Boxing Club and was co-headlined by the vacant
Australia - Queensland State light welterweight title-bout between Ty Gilchrist and Kyle Teer.
Roberto, 25, was entering in his career’s 29th bout and exhibited a resume that was tarnished by a huge 14 bouts. He has collected just 13 bouts and only five of them via knockout.
Even with such resume, Lerio possessed a huge advantage over the newbie Jason. Cooper, 20, was entering in his career’s fourth bout and boasted a resume of two wins and one draw.
There was no chance for the young Aussie lad to come up with a plan and create an upset. On the other hand, the battle was a golden chance for the Filipino Roberto to break his long seven-bout loss streak.
Also known as the ‘Hands of Stone’, Lerio possessed the knockout proficiency and experience advantage whereas Jason was entering the ring with the hometown and height advantage.
Cooper, widely known as ‘The Nugget’, should have strived hard in order to grab the apex divisional gold since his opponent was going through a tough time and was seriously demoralised by the recent losses but he did not do so.
The bout kicked off and Jason started pounding Lerio with great force and impressive command. After the passage of initial rounds, Roberto started to control the pace of the bout and battered Cooper with his knockout jab.
Cooper was out of ideas and he just kept on taking the punishment striving hard to protect his body and face from the continuous jabbing. In the last two or three rounds, Lerio started to get fatigued which gave an opportunity to Jason who came up front
and leashed his own wave of thunderous mind jolting jabs.
Both men did not strive hard to knock the other one out and after the 10-round wild ride two of the three designated judges awarded the bout to Lerio with 96-94 and 96-95 scores and the remaining one allocated 94-97 in Cooper’s favour.
The scores showed that Jason did put everything but unfortunately he was against a much more experienced man who clearly outclassed him in almost all the facets of the sport.
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