Gunnar Jackson's reign as the New Zealand super middleweight champion is over after he was beaten by Adrian Taihia over 10 rounds at the ABA Stadium in Auckland last week.
Aucklander Taihia has never lost at the stadium and with his win he also claimed ownership of the vacant WorldBoxing Federation Oceania Super Middleweight title.
The bout was a rematch of their encounter last October, which ended in a 10-round draw at the same venue.
Jackson's trainer Chris Walker, from Tauranga Box Health and Fitness, said it was a unanimous points decision by the three judges which left Jasckson now with a professional record of 15 wins, four losses and three draws.
"It was a reasonably close fight regardless of the decision," said Walker. "But Gunnar just wasn't busy enough to be fair and he couldn't establish his jab as well as he wanted to. His work rate was just a little bit down, probably about 10 per cent down on the last time he fought him, and that was probably enough to make the difference.
"As regards to clean scoring shots, I would say that there was nothing in it but Adrian was probably leading off a bit more and just a little bit busier and that makes an impression in the judges minds regardless of whether the punches are hitting the mark or not."
Walker and Jackson are moving into a new weight division..
"Gunnar is all right about the loss because he knows his work rate wasn't quite there and he knows Adrian won the fight and pressed the issue," said Walker. "He was a lot more aggressive than he was the last fight.
"We are looking to dropping him down a division to middleweight. The reason for that is basically the limit for super middle is 76.2kg and most boxers will be at least three or four kilos over their weight division and will drop down for the weigh-in.
"But Gunnar weighs in about 74.8kg and that's without doing anything to lose weight so he only has to lose about 2.4kg to drop down to the next weight division where he will be even more competitive than he is now."
