Sam Soliman punched his way to one more title shot after a dominant showing against Giovani Lorenzo in their middleweight title eliminator Friday evening in Geelong, Australia.
Scores were 117-110, 118-109 and 118-108 in their 12-round main event in favor of Soliman, who is now the mandatory challenger to IBF middleweight champion Daniel Geale.
The theme was the same throughout the bout. Soliman was the much busier fighter while Lorenzo sought to land one big punch at a time. Soliman overcame a slow start to outwork the Dominican challenger to the point of the fight becoming a rout.
Lorenzo has endured his share of bad luck on the road in the past, almost always complaining of robbery in the end. There was no disputing the outcome this time around, as the former title challenger was dominated from round two onward.
Soliman put an exclamation point on the win with two knockdowns in the final round. The 38-year old has now won seven straight as he improves to 42-11-1 (17KO). The win puts him in line to potentially fight for two belts, as Geale is slated for a unification bout with Felix Sturm early next month.
Lorenzo falls to 31-5 (23KO). All five losses have come within his last 10 contests, including failed title bids against Sebastian Sylvester and Felix Sturm.
UNDERCARD
Andrew Wallace survived his toughest test to date in outlasting Terry Tzouramanis in a battle of unbeaten super lightweights. In the end, Wallace (8-0-3, 2KO) prevailed by split decision. Scores were 78-74 and 77-76 for Wallace, while the lone dissenting judge had it 77-76 in favor of Tzouramanis (7-1-1, 4KO).
Azat Hovhannisyan (3-1, 3KO) has now won three straight since losing his pro debut last April. The super featherweight enjoyed an easy night’s work in preliminary action, scoring two knockdowns en route to a third round stoppage of Michael Wood (0-1, 0KO).
Kane McKay (9-9-2, 4KO) defeated Peter Brennan (9-20-4, 2KO) via unanimous decision. Scores were 39-37 (twice) and 39-36 in their four-round cruiserweight battle, which opened the show.
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