WBO Champion
Cook got another opportunity to fight for the WBO belt in September 2008 when he decided to move up a weight division and challenge Alex Arthur for the WBO Super-Featherweight title. The fight took place at the MEN Arena in Manchester and was the chief support to Amir Khan's ill-fated match up with Colombian Breidis Prescott when he was knocked out within a minute. Cook beat Arthur over 12 rounds to win a unanimous decision. The parallels were striking between the fighters as Arthur was also a former British, Commonwealth and European champion at the higher weight, he had also been beaten only once before. After the fight Arthur claimed he had been "robbed" and also alleged that Cook had gone up to him after the fight and said "You're a great champion, you won the fight well done" thus compounding his sense of shock when the verdict was announced. On March 14, 2009, Cook was knocked down twice in the 4th round of his first defence against Puerto Rican boxer Román Martínez. Despite beating the count he was in no condition to continue and the referee stopped the contest, with the unbeaten Martínez becoming the new WBO super featherweight champion.
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Famous quotes containing the word champion:
“What a terrible thing has happened to us all! To you there, to us here, to all everywhere. Peace who was becoming bright-eyed, now sits in the shadow of death; her handsome champion has been killed as he walked by her very side. Her gallant boy is dead. What a cruel, foul, and most unnatural murder! We mourn here with you, poor, sad American people.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)