Title fights from around the world: Siyakholwa Kuse evens the score against Melvin Jerusalem
Published on
Today, boxing world title fights take place around the globe and are more accessible to watch than ever before. Sometimes, championship bouts do not receive as much attention and go underreported. Big Fight Weekend commits to writing about boxing news, previews, and recaps. As such, the site now has a recurring segment on boxing championship bouts from around the world from the past week.
The focus of these pieces will be on clashes ranging from atomweight to heavyweight that had the WBA, WBC, IBF, and/or WBO titles on the line. This week’s edition of “Title Fights From Around the World” consists of one recap. Read on to see how the fight went.
Siyakholwa Kuse evens the score against Melvin Jerusalem
Siyakholwa Kuse (10-3-1, 4 KOs) emerged victorious by unanimous decision in his rematch against Melvin Jerusalem (25-4, 12 KOs).
Scores for the bout were 116-111, 116-112, and 115-112. Kuse is now the WBC minimumweight world champion with the win. He had faced Jerusalem for the same title in October last year, losing by unanimous decision at the time.
The rematch headlined a May 16 Golden Gloves Promotions card at Emperors Palace in Kempton Park, South Africa. Fight fans in South Africa could catch the action live on SuperSport. The rest of the world could do so as a pay-per-view (PPV) with iME.
The early rounds were competitive with both men mostly staying at range. Most punches were being thrown only when one or both decided to close the distance, something that caused a few head clashes. An accidental clash of heads in round two caused a cut by the left eye of Jerusalem. Blood would trickle on that side of his face for the remainder of the bout. Open scoring was present for this fight and after four rounds the scores reflected its competitiveness. One judge had it 39-38 for Kuse, another saw it 39-37 for Jerusalem, while the third had it 38-38.
Kuse had better luck asserting his style in the middle rounds. Jerusalem also appeared to be getting wild with his hooks. This allowed Kuse to jab and set up power shots of his own. After eight rounds, he was up on all three of the judges scorecards.
Kuse was knocked down in the eleventh from a right hand that landed square on his face. Jerusalem’s face was a mess towards the end of the fight, but he did some of his best work in the last two rounds. Both men landed several hard shots from close range in the final stages of the bout. Despite the late knockdown, it was too late for Jerusalem to turn things around and Kuse was ultimately the victor.