Back in August it was announced that Filipino fighter Melvin Jerusalem (22-3, 12) would make his first defense of the WBC Minimumweight title on September 22nd in the Philippines against unbeaten Mexican challenger Luis Castillo (21-0-1, 13). It’s now been confirmed that that won’t be the only notable bout on the card, with the announcement that a former world champion will be in the main support bout, with the rest of the card packed with Filipino prospects.The former world champion added to the show is former IBF Super Flyweight champion
Jerwin Ancajas (34-4-2, 23), who takes on Thai veteran
Sukpraserd Ponpitak (30-19, 20) in a 10 rounder at Featherweight. For Ancajas the bout will be his first since being stopped in 9 rounds by WBA Bantamweight champion
Takuma Inoue back in February. It had long been known that Ancajas had been struggling to make Featherweight and whilst the move to Bantamweight seemed logical it may well have been that even boiling down to 118lbs was taking too much from the “Pretty Boy”. As for the Thai Ponpitak is regarded as a reliable journeyman-come-gatekeeper, who puts up a genuine effort, but regularly falls short. He has genuinely faced a who's who over the years, with his 49 bout record seeing him go up against the likes of
Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, Thachtana Luangphon,
Keita Kurihara, Yukinori Oguni, Xiaojun Qiu, Billy Dib, Mark Magsayo, Ik Yang.
Others now set for this card include Gabriel Santisima (5-0-1, 4) and Kevin Villanueva (4-0, 2), among a number of unbeaten novices, all looking to move their career forward and score a win on one of, if not the, biggest Filipino card of 2024.
