Weekend of the Small But Terrible
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 23 Sep 2024
Diminutive but deadly Melvin Jerusalem led the victors in a weekend sports action capped by the lightweight University of the East Red Warriors leading by as many as 17 points in sending down the tall and mighty UAAP defending champion De La Salle University Green Archers to a shocking 75-71 defeat.
Defending his WBC minimumweight title for the first time, "Gringo" Jerusalem finally broke the maiden title defense losses against Latinos that jinxed him before and two other Pinoy champions by soundly beating his top ranking Mexican challenger Luis Castillo in Mandaluyong City.
Spotting his brash challenger by at least three inches in both height and reach, Jerusalem put those statistics for naught aa he dominated Castillo from the get go shunting aside a usually feel out first round by sending the Mexican crashing down to the canvas with a hard counter right.
That painfully sent home the message to Castillo who was boss and from then on the Mexican who days earlier vowed to bring back home the crown, was on survival mode.
So thorough was Jerusalem's beat down that Japanese scoring referee Yuji Fukuchi had him up by nine, 118-109 at the end of the fight The two other neutral judges were not as generous, both giving Melvin a clean sweep of the scheduled 12 rounds, 120-107.
The successful first defense in effect firmly affirmed Jerusalem's status as the holder of the prestigious green and gold championship belt of the most respected and credible boxing sanctioning organization for years now, the WBC,
Last year, Jerusalem won the WBO minimumweight crown via 2nd round knockout of Masataka Taniguchi in Japan. But he was forced to make his first defense like his predecessors on foreign shores and lost the title to the prodigious Oscar Collazo in Puerto Rico.
One fight and win later, Melvin was handpicked by then newly crowned WBC champion Yudai Shigeoka for his own first title defense in Japan. Melvin did not waste the chance to become world champion again, He downed Yudai twice on the way to a questionable 12 round split decision to win the prestigious WBC belt.
Later, concerns were raised as to how long Melvin will remain champion as the Japanese promoter held the option for his next fight. The apprehension then was that Melvin might be forced to defend against Yudai's younger brother Ginjiro, who lost his IBF title on the same card to another Filpino Pedro Taduran. But it appeared that Ginjiro was so beat up that he was not ready.
With the Japanese promoter vacillating, the MP Promotions of ex Senator Manny Pacquiao stepped in and decided to hold Melvin's first defense in the Philippines against Mexican top ranked challenger Castillo.
That's the break that made possible Jerusalem's dream of fighting before his own countrymen with a world crown at stake.
And he did not disappoint.
In the co main event, former long time IBF super flyweight titlist Jerwin Ancajas fighting for the first time in his homeland, also won by disqualification over Thai veteran Sukpraserd Ponpitak.
Also fighting for the first time as a featherweight or three divisions over his former weight class; Ancajas was delivering a beat down on Ponpitak when the referee was forced to stop the bout and disqualify the Thai for continuously pushing Ancajas down despite repeated warnings and points deduction.
It would now appear that Jerwin has found his new effective fighting weight class after weight issues resulted in him losing his long held IBF 115 lbs title to Fernando Martinez and his bid for a world crown at 118 lbs against Takuma Inoue the past two years.
However, his next fight at 126 lbs especially against rated opponents will tell if Ancajas is still a world caliber fighter.
Meanwhile, former bemedaled amateur and Rio 2016 Olympian Charly Suarez kept his unbeaten record by an impressive 3rd round stoppage of the tall Jorge Castaneda in the undercards of the Jaime Mungia vs Erik Bazinyan main event in Glendale, Arizona.
Suarez as a result added the WBO international super featherweight championship to his bevy of minor titles.
Used to fighting taller foes, Charly sent the former WBC silver champion twice to the canvas, the last so hard that the referee did not bother to count and stopped the bout and declare him the winner by TKO.
Castaneda is a late replacement for Suarez's original opponent, the highly rated super featherweight contender Andres Cortez who pulled out due to alleged training injury.
The win raised Suarez record to 18 wins with 10 stoppages and put him nearer to a world title crack possibly against WBO regular titlist Anthony Cacace.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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