SYLVESTER LOPEZ FAILS IN WORLD TITLE BID
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 08 Jul 2012
World Boxing Council super flyweight Silver champion Sylvester Lopez failed in his bid to give the Philippines another world title even as he tried his best to make up for Manny Pacquiao's loss of his WBO welterweight title to Timothy Bradley in a scandalous split decision last June 9.
The protege of Gabriel "Bebot" Elorde jr could not overcome the height and reach of Japan's WBC champion Yota Sato in the title fight staged at the Bunka Gym, in Yokohama on Sunday hours after WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito "The Filipino Flash" Donaire wrested the IBF title from a totally outclassed South African Jeffrey Mathebula at the Home Depot Center in Carson City, California.
While Donaire had some problems against the much taller Mathebula who was 5' 10" tall, Lopez by all accounts couldn't cope with a much smaller height disparity and was unable to handle the classy Sato.
All three judges had Sato a clear winner on points. Lou Moret scored the fight 119-109 for the defending champion while Chan Soo Kim had Sato ahead by a much closer 116-113 margin. The third judge David Bilocerkowec scored the fight for the Japanese 118-110.
The fight was telecast at 9:00 p.m. on AKTV IBC 13.
The 24 year old Lopez earned the title shot with a stunning 8th round TKO over highly favored Mexican Oscar Ibarra in a title eliminator in Mexico on September 24, 2011 and in his last fight scored a 4th round TKO over Japan?s Yuki Fukumoto in a scheduled ten round bout on March 10 this year. However, he failed to come close to duplicating those winning performances, Sunday.
With the loss Lopez dropped to 19-4-1 with 15 knockouts while his 28 year old opponent Yota Sato improved to 25-2-1 with 12 knockouts.
Lopez was slow to get into his rhythm allowing Sato to pepper with several right hooks in the opening round that set the tone for the fight. The Japanese champion continued to catch the Filipino challenger with his right hooks and at the end of four rounds in the welcome WBC rule of announcing the scores at the end of the fourth round was ahead 40-36 on two judges scorecards and 39-38 on the third.
Lopez failed to really get back into the fight allowing Sato to coast to victory.
In a post fight interview Sato said "Lopez is ranked top and he has 19 wins and 15 KOs. He is really a strong fighter, so I was a bit nervous in the first round."
However, the champion promised to "fight more aggressively in my next defense of the title."
Despite his comfortable win Sato was quoted by boxingscene.com saying "I'm not satisfied with the way I fought today, but I promise that I will improve a lot for my next match."
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