By Ronnie Nathanielsz
The Philippines Rolly Lunas who fights under the name Rolly Matsushita has regained the Oriental Pacific Boxing Federation bantamweight title he once held by scoring an 8th round knockout over countryman Zerofit Jerope Mercado who also fights under the Japanese name of Zuiyama.
The fight took place on Sunday at the Sambo Hall in Kobe, Japan. The end came at 0:58 seconds of the eighth round.
The 27 year old Lucas regained the title after fellow Filipino and former world flyweight champion Malcolm Tunacao relinquished the crown last June 11. Lucas won the 118 pound title with a ten round technical decision over Tunacao on January 13, 2007 and had four successful defenses before he challenged Anselmo Moreno for the world WBA title .He lost by a unanimous twelve round decision on October 30, 2008.
Tunacao regained the title he lost to Lucas with a twelve round split decision over Seung Suk Chae of South Korea on February 6, 2010.He had three successful defenses before relinquishing the title.
In a roller coaster career Lunas moved up to super bantamweight and won the OPBF belt with a twelve round split decision win over Wethya Sakmuangklang of Thailand on January 11, 2009 only to lose the title in his first defense when he suffered a 7th round knockout at the hands of Japan’s Hiromasa Ohashi onJune 21, 2009.
Lucas who was coming off a 1st round TKO of Indonesia’s Rasmanudin last April 24 proved too good for Mercado who had a string of 13 wins and 2 draws after losing the Philippine super flyweight title to Eden Sonsona by a 9th round TKO on October 14, 2006.
With the win Lucas improves to 29-8[1 with 17 knockouts while the 31 year old Mercado drops to 23-2-3 with 8 knockouts.