Ancajas another British tormentor
When IBF superflyweight champion Jerwin Ancajas stopped Irishman Jamie Conlan to retain his title in Belfast last week, he joined an elite cast of Filipinos who’ve victimized British fighters in world championship bouts.
At the top of the list is Iloilo’s Pancho Villa who knocked out Jimmy (Mighty Atom) Wilde in the seventh round for the world flyweight diadem before 23,000 fans at the Polo Grounds in New York in 1923. Villa, whose real name was Francisco Guilledo, became the first Asian to capture a world boxing crown at 21. He was paid a mammoth purse of $65,000 for the fight. Wilde was 30 and entered the ring with a 132-2-1 record. Villa raised his mark to 67-6-3. During that era, fighters were extremely busy. It was Villa’s 10th bout that year and he fought 10 more outings before the year ended. Wilde was knocked out cold and never fought again. Boxing News of London recently ranked the top 100 British fighters of all time. Wilde was No. 1 in the honor roll. “Wilde wasn’t just a great fighter, he was a phenomenon,” said Boxing News. Wilde came out of a two-year retirement to face Villa and never bargained to be thrashed by the Filipino dervish. Another British warrior who was halted by a Filipino was Ricky Hatton. In May 2009, Manny Pacquiao knocked out Hatton with a single left hook to the jaw in the second round to claim the IBO superlightweight belt at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. He was ranked No. 16 among the top 100 British fighters. “With his magnetic personality, self-deprecating sense of humor and swarming pressure boxing style, Hatton regularly took Las Vegas by storm with his incredible army of supporters,” wrote Boxing
News. “His life nosedived into depression following a violent shellacking at the ends of Pacquiao.”
Cornelius Boza-Edwards was born in Uganda then migrated to England and became a British citizen. In 1981, he lost his WBC superfeatherweight title to Rolando Navarrete of General Santos City on a fifth round stoppage in Viareggio, Italy. Boza-Edwards was down twice in the fourth and once in the fifth before referee Arthur Mercante stepped in. BozaEdwards was listed No. 56 among the top 100 British fighters. Tunisia-born Charlie Magri, No. 69 in the British ladder, was dethroned as WBC flyweight champion by Cebu’s Frank Cedeno in a brutal sixth round knockout at the Wembley Arena in 1983. Magri was ahead in two of the three judges’ scorecards when Cedeno sent the hometowner down thrice to finish him off. Referee Angelo Poletti waved it off at 2:33 of the sixth.
Two other Filipinos who won over Britishers in world title fights were Johnriel