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Melvin Jerusalem with the WBC belt on his shoulder. | Photo provided by: Sunman Boxing
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Boxing is finally in the Philippines as Melvin “Gringo” Jerusalem stripped Yudai Shigeoka of the World Boxing Council (WBC) world minimumweight title by split decision in Nagoya, Japan on Sunday, March 31st. ended the world title drought. .
Jerusalem powered through to win against the massively popular Japanese world champion after knocking down the latter twice in a back-and-forth 12-round battle.
This is the second time Jerusalem has become world champions. In 2023, Jerusalem also won the WBO world minimumweight strap by defeating the Philippines' Masataka Taniguchi by second-round TKO, ending the Philippines' world title drought.
read: Amparo vs. Shigeoka falls short in last-minute world title match
He ultimately lost his world title to Puerto Rico's Oscar Collazo in May 2023 in his first defense on Puerto Rico's Oscar Collazo's turf.
This time, two judges, Jevon Kim and Barry Lindenman, gave Jerusalem the same score, 114 to 112, while one of the judges, Malcolm Brunner, ironically gave Shigeoka the victory, 114 to 113. I saw that it was done.
counter right straight
The 30-year-old from Jerusalem, who is based in Cebu, knocked out Shigeoka twice.
read: Melvin Jerusalem vows to end PHL boxing world title drought
In the 3rd round, he took the lead on Shigeoka with a counter straight right.
In the 6th round, Jerusalem landed another straight right, knocking down the Japanese champion.
With Sunday's victory, Jerusalem's record now stands at 22 wins, 12 KOs, and 3 losses. He suffered his first loss in nine fights with a 5KO to Shigeoka.
Jerusalem became the first Filipino world champion since Marlon Tapares lost his IBF and WBA world super bantamweight titles to Japanese boxing superstar Naoya Inoue in Tokyo last December.
read: Jerusalem and Amparo weigh in on Japan's world title fight
fight to the toes
Despite losing on his home turf, Shigeoka showed his qualities as a champion after forcing Jerusalem into several heated battles.
However, Jerusalem always delivered a decisive blow in a one-on-one battle.
Jerusalem also landed more important punches, especially a straight right, which caused profuse bleeding from Shigeoka's nose in the mid-round.
In the final three rounds, Shigeoka increased his pace with more combinations, but Jerusalem answered every punch from Shigeoka without fail.
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