Melvin Jerusalem will be fighting in front of his countrymen in the first week of September against undefeated Mexican challenger Luis Castillo to defend his prestigious World Boxing Council (WBC) minimumweight belt.
Manny Pacquiao’s MP Promotions will be arranging a quality fight card for the first title defense of the 30-year-old two-time world champion in September in a still undetermined venue, either in Manila or Masbate or General Santos City.
“Quality world boxing title will be coming soon to the Philippines, and Melvin Jerusalem, our present and only current world champion, will be a main part of it,” Pacquiao, the eight-division world champion, said. “It’s a great timing that he is holding one of the most prestigious world boxing titles—the WBC.”
Castillo, 26, is a dangerous southpaw sporting 21 wins against one draw with 13 knockouts.
Although no exact date and venue have been announced yet in September, MP Promotions president Sean Gibbons said the timing is right because that’s what they have agreed upon with the WBC when its president Mauricio Sulaiman visited the country last March.
“For pride and country, this is surely a Filipino thing because for the longest time, everytime a Filipino becomes a world champion, he’s really obliged to go to defend his belt at his enemy’s territory,” Gibbons said.
“So Jerusalem is our last remaining hope at the moment, he is our only reigning Filipino world champion, and we need this fight to happen in the Philippines,”he added.
Jerusalem, a former World Boxing Organization minimum weight champion, has taken home the WBC belt in Tokyo, Japan last March 31 after scoring a split decision victory over Japanese Yudai Shigeoka to put Philippine boxing back into the world boxing map.