Lawler won the belt at the Bathurst Showground Pavilion on Saturday, October 15, as part of the Final Showdown tournament card, defeating Parkes’ Brad Moss by unanimous decision.

Moss has two months to sought a rematch.

Lawler identified his dominance in the third stanza of the four round bout as instrumental to the end result.

“I hadn’t had a four round fight before so I was wary of my work-rate,” Lawler said of the opening two, two minute rounds.

“I turned it up after round two, I was careful and picked my punches but I was trading a lot more. I sealed it in third.”

Lawler, a member of this year’s Cowra Blues Central West AFL premiership winning side, says he was confident ahead of the fight, having defeated Moss previously.

The two went toe-to-toe back in February this year resulting in Lawler winning a split decision.

“He thought he won, I thought I won so it’s good to prove I was the winner,” Lawler said.

“In the fourth we were both stuffed, I was exhausted and we just punched each other in the head for two minutes.

“I was confident I’d won,” he said.

 Trained locally by Jason Steward, Lawler’s compiled an amateur boxing record of 7-2, including one knockout victory, and has been undefeated since combining with Steward roughly four years ago.

With an eye on continuing his rise through the amateur boxing ranks next year, Lawler is hoping for some downtime during the summer months.

“I’d like to go for the NSW Country title for the lightweight division or maybe a state title for super-lightweight,” he said.

“I’ll keep climbing my way up and hopefully get a national title one day.

“I’m hoping to have November and December as a bit of an off season before getting back into things in February and March. But if I do have have to fight I’d be ready to go,” he added.