Former world champion Jerwin Ancajas remained on track in his bid to fight for a title again after scoring an eight-round majority decision victory over Ruben Casero of Uruguay at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California.
It was Ancajas’s first fight in the US in three years and he didn’t waste the chance to stay in the running for a possible world title crack.
He came up with rapid-fire two-fisted body attacks that sent the South American backtracking.
Two judges scored it 80-72 for Ancajas while the third saw it 76-76, a surprising result given that the Filipino southpaw was the dominant fighter.
His last stab at the world title came in Tokyo last year when he fell to Takuma Inoue for the World Boxing Association bantam throne.
Ancajas, who held the International Boxing Federation super-flyweight crown for almost six years, raised his win-loss-draw record to 37-4-2 with 24 knockouts.
Casero, meanwhile, dropped to 13-5-0 with four wins inside the distance.
On hand to celebrate Ancajas’ victory was his American representative Sean Gibbons.