Jerwin Ancajas, the defending IBF 115-pound champion, makes his Top Rank debut this Saturday night as he faces Israel Gonzalez as the co-featured attraction on ESPN from the Bank of America Center in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Ancajas (28-1-1, 19 KO’s) being a southpaw Filipino with an offensive style draws natural comparisons to Manny Pacquiao, which obviously excites Top Rank’s CEO Bob Arum, who signed Ancajas to a six-fight deal recently.
“Obviously, our whole adventure with Manny was so successful. It took up a good part of my life, certainly the recent part. So you’ve got a kid like Jerwin who is very, very talented and is a lovely kid and you hope that it turns out the same way,” said the veteran promoter last Friday morning, where a media meet-and-greet was held for Ancajas at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood, California.
As for his expectations for Ancajas, Arum stated, ”Again, it’s early and we have a relatively long-term deal with him which hopefully goes on forever and it’s going to depend on A): on how he performs in the ring and B): how good we are in selling a kid of that weight to the public.”
Back on July 1st in Australia, Ancajas fought on the Manny Pacquiao-Jeff Horn undercard at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia. He was impressive in stopping Teiru Kinoshita in seven rounds.
“I had never seen him before and Sean Gibbons (who is a part of Ancajas’ brain trust) had brought him in and convinced everybody that he would perform well and he was on television both to the United States and Australia,” said Arum. “And he destroyed the Japanese fighter.”
The ESPN card will be headlined by WBO super middleweight world champion Gilberto Ramirez, who makes a voluntary world title defense against Habib Ahmed.
