Melbourne Pavillion, Flemington, Victoria, Australia - In a crossroads battle of light heavyweight contenders, Isaac Chilemba (24-5-2, 10 KOs) won a twelve round unanimous decision over Blake Caparello (28-3-1, 10 KOs).

The win gave Chilemba the vacant WBC International title and a very likely boost in their rankings.

The official scores were 115-113, 115-113 and 117-111.

For Chilemba, the victory snapped a three fight losing streak.

It was his first bout since November of 2016.

Chilemba lost a twelve round majority decision to Eleider Alvarez back in November of 2015, in what was a WBC final eliminator. 

Despite that loss, he earned a crack at then unified light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev in July of 2016.  Chilemba traveled over to Russia and gave the dangerous puncher a much tougher fight than anyone had expected. While he went down in the seventh round, he became one of the few boxers to go the full twelve round distance with Kovalev.

But in his next fight, in November of the same year, he took a beating and was stopped for the first time in his career by rising force Oleksandr Gvozdyk, in eight rounds. Chilemba said he suffered a badly broken had and was unable to continue any further.

Caparello, on the other hand, was riding a four fight winning streak.

He also stepped in the ring with Kovalev, back in August of 2014. After scoring a flash knockdown in the first round, he was stopped by Kovalev in the second.

He came back to win his next three fights, but then lost a ten round decision to Andre Dirrell in April fo 2016. Dirrell was also dropped in the fight.

Caparello then really got his career back on track by winning his next four fights, and all of them by knockout.

Now after losing to Chilemba he has to once again regroup and make a comeback, which shouldn't be hard at the age of 31.