MANILA, Philippines — Jerwin Ancajas has reigned as IBF world super flyweight champion for nearly five years now but he’s still considered as a young and developing name in the bigger scheme of the sport.
Undefeated since 2012, Ancajas usually dominated his opponents during his title wins but Jonathan Rodriguez proved to be a different beast.
Ancajas admitted that it was Rodriguez that made him work the hardest to the point that he now plans to add a few more moves into his skillset.
“Our game plan was to be aggressive and throw a lot of punches but what happened was a brawl,” said Ancajas in Filipino in a Zoom interview with Inquirer.
“We need to work on punches that are suited for a brawling style, we’ll study how to do it.”
Photo from Showtime Boxing’s Twitter
Despite walking away with the unanimous decision win (115-112, 116-111, 117-110), Ancajas was actually out-punched in the bout.
Rodriguez (22-2) landed 273 punches to Ancajas’ 232 and he connected on 253 power punches while the champion managed to tag the challenger 176 times with his dominant hand.
Ancajas (33-1-2), however, had better control with the jab at 56-20 and body shots at 131-44.
Though he’s not a brawler by nature, Ancajas said that he wanted to throw and go on the full offensive in the final three rounds of the fight and he did just that.
“My corner and I wanted to give it all in those three rounds,” said Ancajas. “I told myself I want to go and give a great fight. I gave it my all in those rounds.”