by Ronnie Nathanielsz

The Philippines Cirilo Espino has lost by a twelve round majority decision in his clash for the WBO Asia Pacific super bantamweight title against Indonesia’s Carlos Lopez in the TVRI Studios in Jakarta.

A report from Jakarta said Lopez survived the onslaught of Espino, nicknamed “Slugger” and used a hit and run strategy to pile up points in the early rounds.

However, the Filipino stepped up the aggression in the seventh round and rocked Lopez several times in the round but couldn’t drop him. But the hometown fighter used some good counter-punching to come back.

In the twelfth round Espino launched a furious attack and almost succeeded in dropping Lopez who is the Indonesian Boxing Commission champion but Lopez clinched and saved himself from being knocked down.

Two of the judges had Lopez the winner by a single point  115-114 while the third judge scored it even at 114-114 thereby giving Lopez the title.

With the win the 25 year old Lopez who was born in Timor Leste improved to improved to 26-9 with 7 knockouts while the 29 year old Espino dropped to  16-10-2 with 10 knockouts.

Lopez was coming off a successful defense of his Indonesian title in a rematch with Andy Letding, winning by a twelve round unanimous decision on March 4, 2012. When the two met for the first time on June 12, 2011 Lopez also won by a twelve round unanimous decision.

Espino was coming off a twelve round unanimous decision to win the World Boxing Union International title against Alvin Makiling on February 12, 2012.