To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Muhammad Ali’s legendary “Thrilla in Manila” rubber match with Joe Frazier, Manny Pacquiao Promotions teamed up with the IBA to stage an unofficial sequel event earlier today, which saw multiple Filipino A-sides push through adversity to emerge victorious.
The featured attraction saw WBC minimumweight champion Melvin Jerusalem (25-3, 12 KO) make a successful third defense of his title against 22-year-old South African challenger Siyakholwa Kuse (9-3-1, 4 KO). Open
scoring had Jerusalem up on two cards and down on the other after eight, but a strong close allowed him to walk away with a unanimous decision victory.
By all accounts, however, the real highlights came in gold medalist Eumir Marcial’s (7-0, 4 KO) 10-round war with Venezuelan slugger Eddy Colmenares (11-3-1, 11 KO). Marcial, no stranger to dramatic swings, got off the canvas twice to edge out a majority decision that had more than one commenter calling for Fight of the Year honors.
You can rewatch the whole event on the IBA’s YouTube channel here; Marcial vs Colmenares kicks off around 9:45:00, the main event just before 10:56:00.
Other action of note saw Carl Martin (27-0, 20 KO) trade knockdowns with former Naoya Inoue victim Aran Dipaen (21-5, 18 KO) en route to a wide unanimous decision win and Nico Ali Walsh (11-2-1, 5 KO), who some of you may not realize is Muhammad Ali’s grandson, fight Thailand’s Kittisak Klinson (10-2-1, 6 KO) to an eight-round draw.
