MELVIN JERUSALEM kept his world title, Marlon Tapales won convincingly and Eumir Felix Marcial, Carl Jammes Martin teetered before coming out smoking in the end in the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ 50th anniversary fights that lasted until dawn on Thursday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Jerusalem, sporting a mid-afro blond hair, won by unanimous decision over Siyakholwa Kuse to retain his World Boxing Council (WBC) minimumweight belt and improve to 25-3 won-lost with 12 knockouts.
Jerusalem fought impressively in all 12 rounds to secure scores of 116-112, 116-112, and 115-113 and send the South African, who’s nine years younger at 22, to his third loss as against none victories and one draw.
‘He never wanted to give up, but of course, I won’t too,’ Jerusalem said. ‘He’s no pushover and he can be a world champion someday.’
Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist Marcial fought his first 10-rounder since turning pro in 2021, celebrated his 30th birthday Wednesday via a majority decision victory over Venezuelan knockout artist Eddy Colmenares.
Marcial, however, had to survive two knockdowns in each of the third and 10th rounds, to grab the vacant WBC international middleweight title.
‘He [Colmenares] is very durable and he really wanted to go home a winner,’ said Marcial, who sustained a cut above his eyebrow. ‘I must return to training and see what I need to improve on.’
Marcial, now 7-0 as a pro, got the nod of two judges (96-93) with the third judge declaring it a draw (94-94) in scoring the majority draw that saw Colmenares go down to an 11-3-1 record-his 11 wins were all knockouts.
Martin, on the other hand, survived a third round knockdown against Thailand’s Aran Dipaen to win via unanimous decision in a non-title super bantamweight bout-he’s now unbeaten in 27 fights with 20 knockouts.
Former unified super bantamweight champion Tapales knocked out Venezuelan Fernando Toro in the sixth round of their 122-lb non-title bout to hike his record to 41-4 with 22 knockouts.