Giuseppe Lauri

Giuseppe Lauri (born 28 May 1976) is an Italian professional boxer.^[1] A two-decade veteran of the sport, he is a former European Union super-lightweight champion and has challenged four times for the European super-lightweight title.

Professional career

Lauri made his professional debut on 20 December 1997, scoring a first-round stoppage over Frederic Rafhey, who also debuted.^[1] Fighting mainly in Switzerland and Italy throughout the next decade, Lauri also travelled to the UK in losing efforts against future world champions Ricky Hatton and Junior Witter.^[2] On 22 September 2006, Lauri fought for his first major regional championship—the vacant European super-lightweight title—but lost a unanimous decision to Ted Bami. In a rematch with Bami on 30 March 2007, with the same title on the line, Lauri lost again via unanimous decision.^[3]

Lauri became the European Union super-lightweight champion on 21 September 2007, stopping Michele di Rocco in seven rounds. They, too, would have a rematch many years later on 14 April 2012. In this fight, which had the now-vacant European Union super-lightweight title on the line, di Rocco stopped Lauri in the first round.^[4] During his reign as European Union champion, Lauri would score wins over contenders Peter McDonagh, Ville Piispanen and Juho Tolppola. The fight against Tolppola, on 30 May 2009, ended in a highly controversial manner when Tolppola was first disqualified after ten rounds due to repeated fouls, after which his father stormed the ring and punched the referee.^[5]

Further unsuccessful challenges for the European super-lightweight title came against Paul McCloskey on 11 June 2010^[6] and Denis Shafikov on 23 September 2011,^[7] both via stoppage. Beginning from the rematch with di Rocco, Lauri would suffer a seven-fight losing streak which was finally ended on 24 May 2014, with a second-round stoppage win over Lajos Bimbo.

Professional boxing record

References