MANILA – Philippines has ended its world boxing championship drought. Melvin Jerusalem took home the World Boxing Council (WBC) world minimumweight championship.
The Bukidnon-native Jerusalem bagged the world title after a split decision victory over Japanese fighter Yudai Shigeoka on Sunday night at the International Conference Hall in Nagoya, Japan.
Two of the judges gave the 30-year-old Jerusalem an identical 114-112 score while the third judge curiously gave a 114-113 score for Shigeoka despite latter dropping twice in the match.
Jerusalem was the aggressor in the opening round. He landed volume hits on Shigeoka before the latter responded with his own connections in the second round.
Jerusalem regained his form in the third frame and dropped Shigeoka for the first time with a heavy right hand to the chin. He continued his volume hits in the fourth and fifth frame.
In the sixth round, Jerusalem once again send Shigeoka to the canvas with a right straight to the jaw and went on to dominate the Japanese with his power hits in the succeeding rounds.
Shigeoka, however, tried to turn things around from round 10 onwards as he unloaded flurry of hits on Jerusalem, but was not enough to turn the results around.
Jerusalem is currently the lone Filipino world boxing champion following the world title defeats of Jerwin Ancajas and Marlon Tapales in Japan last year.
With the victory, Jerusalem now has a record of 22-3-0 win-loss-draw with 12 stoppage wins while Shigeoka suffered his first career defeat in nine fights.
Meanwhile, Jake Amparo failed to duplicate Jerusalem’s world title feat after losing to Genjiro Shigeoka via second round stoppage for the IBF minimumweight title./PN
