Sermeno, Antonio

Born with the name Antonio Jose Verdu Sermac on March 6, 1969 in the town of Rio Chico , Miranda .

He made his debut in the professional ring in September 1990, his first American rival, Jose Angel Medina, known for his fight with Julio Cesar Chavez , won by TKO in the second round. Over the next five years, he spent many successful fights, having suffered only one single defeat. Having risen in the ratings, in 1995 he got the opportunity to compete for the world title in the second bantamweight according to the World Boxing Association . The current long-time champion Wilfredo Vazquez from Puerto Rico has already defended his championship belt ten times, but Sermeno still managed to defeat him by unanimous decision and became the new champion.

Sermeno defended his champion title seven times, without losing it to anyone - in 1997 he decided to rise to the featherweight category, and the title thus became vacant. In April 1998, he challenged the vacant WBA world title in that weight, but lost on points to the American Freddy Norwood . Later this title was made vacant again, and this time Sermeno managed to get it by knocking out another challenger Genaro Rios in the fourth round. He managed to defend this championship title only once, after which, during the second defense in May 1999, he lost it to Norwood, losing a separate decision.

Subsequently, Antonio Sermeno continued to enter the ring for another seven years, won several secondary WBA titles, temporary and regional, but could no longer regain the title of world champion. The last time he fought in an official fight in September 2006, in the second featherweight title he lost to the representative of Nicaragua Santos Benavides ahead of schedule in the fourth round, after which he announced the end of his sports career. In just sixteen years he spent 52 fights on a professional level, of which 45 ended with victory (including 31 ahead of schedule), 7 times lost.

Sermeno several times became a defendant in criminal cases. Even during his boxing career in 2003, he was arrested on charges of illegal currency transactions worth $ 15,000 - he pleaded not guilty and was eventually acquitted. He was arrested three times for causing grievous bodily harm, suspected of abducting an Arab businessman, but the victim did not appear at the court hearing, as a result of which the acquittal was again issued. Earlier in 2000, he participated in several shootings in various nightclubs in Miranda, and was considered an accomplice in a murder at the nightclub Mercury 55 ^{[1] [2]} .

On February 24, 2014, at the exit from a store in Caracas, together with his wife Maria Carolina Salas and several other people, he was abducted by unknown criminals. He was in the van for a day, then when the criminals stopped at a roadside gas station, his wife and the rest of the abducted managed to escape. Sermeno himself remained in the hands of the abductors, and on February 25 his body was found in bushes on a highway 78 kilometers from Caracas. Death occurred as a result of multiple bullet wounds ^{[3] [4] [5]} .

• List of world boxing champions in several weight categories

• Antonio Sermeno - professional boxing statistics for BoxRec