By ADRIAN STEWART CO

The Philippines once again has a world boxing champion as Melvin Jerusalem captured 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 at the International Conference Hall in Nagoya, Japan on Sunday night, March 31.

Two 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 the latter dropping twice in the match.

Jerusalem was the aggressor in the opening round as 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 before he continued his volume hits in the fourth and fifth frames.

In the sixth round, Jerusalem once again sent 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.

However, Shigeoka tried to turn things around from Round 10 onwards, as he unloaded a 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./ASC, WDJ