Jerwin Ancajas falls short in bid to regain IBF world super flyweight title

Fernando Daniel Martinez celebrates after beating Jerwin Ancajas by unanimou decision in their rematch. | Screen grab from the live streaming.

CEBU CITY, Philippines—- Former world champion Jerwin “Pretty Boy” Ancajas suffered another heartbreaking defeat against Fernando Daniel Martinez of Argentina in their rematch on Saturday, October 8, 2022 (October 9, Manila Time) at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson City, California.

All three judges favored Martinez for a unanimous decision victory to retain the International Boxing Federation (IBF) world super flyweight title.

It was some sort of a dejavu for Ancajas, the pride of Panabo City who held the IBF world title for six years.

This after, Ancajas found himself being outboxed by Martinez in their toe-to-toe battle, similar to what happened in their first encounter last February in Las Vegas where Martinez stripped him of the world title by unanimous decision.

Ellis Johnson scored the bout lopsidedly, 119-109, while Tiffany Clinton and Zachary Young both scored 110-118 in favor of the Argentinian world champion.

During the bout, Martinez asserted his ring mastery by landing the more telling blows and launching more punches than Ancajas.

The defeat for Ancajas means that the Philippines still doesn’t have a world title in a major boxing governing body.

Also, it inflicted Ancajas his third defeat with 33 wins, 22 knockouts and two draws.

Meanwhile, Martinez remained unbeaten at 15 wins with eight knockouts.

Despite the loss, Ancajas showed some fight and even had good punches that put the crowd on their feet, especially in the second round when he connected a combination that wobbled Martinez.

Ancajas started the fight aggressively, connecting his punches, but Martinez fought back and landed his own combinations to the head and body after the third round.

Ancajas continued to land good shots, until the seventh round when he suffered a cut due to an accidental clash of heads.

Although he wasn’t completely bothered by the cut, Ancajas struggled to counter Martinez’s combinations which piled up points on the judges’ score cards.

In total, Martinez landed 222 of his 584 power punches while Ancajas only landed 168 out of 544. Martinez also connected 19 out of 90 jabs, while Ancajas was slightly behind after landing 17 out of 241 jabs.

Martinez’ had 54 body shots landed compared to Ancajas’ 15.

On the other hand, weathered a nasty cut on his right eyebrow to beat American Steven Pichardo by unanimous decision in the undercard.

All three judges scored the bout, 54-60, in favor of Marcial, an Olympic bronze medalist.

Marcial remained unbeaten in three wins with one knockout, while Pichardo suffered his second defeat with 8 wins, two knockouts, and one draw.

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