By Jack Price @PriceyJ97.
Jhonatan Romero remained undefeated last night (February 16th) with a split decision victory over Alejandro Lopez in which he claimed the vacant IBF super-bantamweight title.
It was a tough and scrappy night of boxing for both fighter and it was nip and tuck the whole way. Romero, fighting in his opponents hometown of Tijuana, Mexico, knew he would have to work hard to win a judges decision. He did this by taking the fight to Lopez and not allowing him to settle. This worked well for the first few rounds and Romero hurt his opponent on a number of occasions. But as the fight progressed, we saw a slight dip in the Colombian's work rate and Lopez saw his success rate to start to rise.
The middle rounds were also close with many people believing that Romero was doing the slightly better work. The championship rounds also proved tough for both men, and Romero saw a point deducted in the final round for repeatedly punching to the back of the head. However, this didn't affect the scorecards as two judges had it 115-112 and 116-111 in favour of Romero, with one judges scoring it 115-112 for Lopez.
This impressive win earns the undefeated 26-year old the first world title of his career. This is also very much relevant news for British fight fans as highly-rated Irishman Carl Frampton is looking likely to challenge for this title later this year after recently beating highly-ranked Spaniard Kiko Martinez. Romero was impressive at stages last night, but also looked very vulnerable at some points. It would be another tough night for Frampton, but its definitely a winnable fight for him.
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