On Saturday May 20, at the Arena (4,000 seats) in Monza (Italy) in the main event of The Art of Fighting 3 European bantamweight champion Alessio Lorusso (21 wins, 9 within the distance, 4 losses and 2 draws) will defend the EBU belt against Thomas Essomba (United Kingdom, 11-8-1).
Lorusso is confident that he will beat his opponent: “I know everything about Thomas Essomba. I know where he trains, who his sparring partners are and the quality of the fighters who defeated him, I have seen his fights. I say that Thoams Essomba is better than his record shows. He lost on points against Sunny Edwards who went on to win the IBF World Flyweight Title and is still undefeated (19-0). Essomba lost by split decision against Marcel Braithwaite, another high level opponent. All in all, Thomas Essomba deserves respect.”
Lorusso is used to studying the other fighters and securing every bit of information about them:
“Before being a fighter, I was a boxing fan and I like to watch the fights. In my weight division I know everything about everybody. The top bantamweights in the world don’t have any secrets for me.”
Before competing as a bantamweight, Lorusso was the Italian super bantamweight champion. Then he changed divisions and won the European Union belt (a secondary title in the old continent) and later the extremely prestigious EBU European championship. He has 4 losses on his record, but he says the reality is different: “I can agree that I lost to Davide Tassi, but the other 3 losses don’t make any sense. I told this to my opponents in their face! The point is that I wanted to fight often so I accepted all the fights offered to me even if I had to go to my opponent’s backyard. Against Jacopo Lusci, I got a draw. But I defeated him when it counted for the Italian super bantamweight title.”