Gre­go­ry Tru­jil­lo

The pret­ty face of T&T fe­male box­er Jizelle Sa­landy was again left un­scarred, as she chalked up her 17th straight win in the ring on Box­ing Night at Jean Pierre Com­plex in Port of Spain. Be­fore a small hol­i­day crown that was one-third the size of when she won her world-record eight ti­tles by beat­ing Ger­man-based Karoli­na Lukasik in March, the en­er­getic 21-year-old fight­er stopped Ya­ha­da Her­nan­dez of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic unan­i­mous­ly on points in her first ti­tle de­fence. While Sa­landy was nev­er hit by any big bombs, she al­most won the ju­nior-mid­dleweight fight on a knock­out in the eighth round, as a de­ter­mined Her­nan­dez held on grim­ly to be saved by the bell. There were no knock­downs.

The judges' score­cards, all in favour of Sa­landy, read: William Boodoo (Guyana) 100-89; Ian Jar­dine (Guyana) 99-92; George St Orr (T&T) 99-93. "I saw an op­por­tu­ni­ty in the eight round to knock out Ya­har­da but the bell came too soon," Sa­landy point­ed out. "Af­ter, my cor­ner told me that I was way ahead on points so just go out there jab, beat her to the punch, and en­joy my­self. I did that and I came out vic­to­ri­ous." Af­ter the de­ci­sion was made of­fi­cial, Sa­landy con­grat­u­lat­ed Ya­har­da, and her han­dlers, for a good ef­fort. She showed her hos­pi­tal­i­ty by tak­ing Ya­ha­da out for din­ner and to Mara­cas Bay yes­ter­day for a lime. "In the ring it is strict­ly busi­ness. But out­side we are hu­man be­ings and must learn to love one an­oth­er."

She ded­i­cat­ed the fight to ail­ing Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and wished him a speedy re­cov­ery, fol­low­ing his surgery in Cu­ba last week. She promised to vis­it him at his res­i­dence in St Ann's yes­ter­day. "My sis­ter had a new born ba­by boy six hours be­fore the fight and he will be an­oth­er box­er in the fam­i­ly," added the cham­pi­on. In the in­ter­view af­ter the vic­to­ry, she thanked Am­badssador Joan Yuille-Williams for be­ing a moth­er fig­ure and a men­tor to her, and women's ac­tivist Hazel Brown for as­sist­ing her with her aca­d­e­mics. Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Gary Hunt, who was at ring­si­ude, was thanked for his min­istry sup­port­ing at least 40 per cent of the in­fra­struc­ture part of the show.

Al­so Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Gen­der Af­fairs, Mar­lene Mc Don­ald for giv­ing her 50 per cent of her US$25,000 purse. Al­so com­ing in for high praise from the cham­pi­on were Ma Pau Casi­nos, Petrotrin, Unit Trust, Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Board and Ali­cia's Place for al­low­ing her to set up a tri­an­ing camp at its ho­tel in La­dy Chan­cel­lor. Sa­landy said that she be­lieved that her op­po­nent was a very for­mi­da­ble one. "She came to fight. We recog­nised that be­ing a big strong girl she would be a brawl­ing type, so we de­cid­ed to get un­der the big punch­es, come right back and counter punch on the in­side, get out on the sides and keep side wind­ing her, whilst jab­bing and look­ing for her weak­e­ness­es to ex­ploit them."

Sa­landy stuck to the game plan from the first round and, while she was not that im­pres­sive, was nev­er trou­bled by the bull-like style of the vis­it­ing fight­er. Her man­ag­er Buxo Potts still firm­ly be­lieves that he has the best fe­male fight­er in the world. "Jiselle has beat­en them all and is now the great­est fe­male fight­er of all times," Potts boast­ed. "We are go­ing to sit down with the sanc­tion­ing bod­ies and work out the lag­is­tics of Jiselle be­ing the su­per cham­pi­on of the world, and free up the de­part­ment, so oth­er girls could come up and have a chance of be­ing a world cham­pi­on. "That means she will have the lux­u­ry of fight­ing who­ev­er she wants and then have a manda­to­ry de­fence every 18 months rather than every six months."

Potts point­ed out that Sa­landy will de­finet­ly fight on a Su­pe­ri­or Pro­mo­tions card at the end of Jan­u­ary, pos­si­bly against Amer­i­can An­gel­i­ca Mar­tinez. "At the end of March we will have a big Pay Per View fight with the op­po­nent be­ing Mary Jo Saun­ders (28 wins, one loss, one draw), a cham­pi­on in four dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories–ju­nior-wel­ter­weight, wel­ter­weight, su­per-wel­ter­weight and mid­dleweight. "We are the best, so from here on we just want to fight the next best," Potts con­clud­ed.

In the main sup­port­ing WBC Cabofe ti­tle bout, 33-year-old light-heavy­weight Sean Corbin moved a step clos­er to a crack at a world ti­tle by scor­ing a fifth round tech­ni­cal knock­out over Leon Gilkes of Guyana.

Corbin, who was born in Guyana and has been liv­ing in T&T for the past 16 years, was in full con­trol through­out and a knock­out was em­i­nent from the first round. He lift­ed his record to eight wins, all by knock­outs, and no de­feats.

Re­sults

JIZELLE SA­LANDY (T&T) bt YA­HAR­DA HER­NAN­DEZ (Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic) by unan­i­mous points de­ci­sion for world ju­nior mi­dleweight ti­tles 100-89; 99-92, 99-93.

SEAN CORBIN (T&T ) bt LEON GILKES (Guyana) WBC Cabofe light heavy­weight ti­tle TKO 2:29 of 5th round.

TANZEE DANIEL (T&T ) v AN­DREA DUN­CAN (Guyana) - Dun­can failed to show up.

SEAN COX (B'dos) bt CLYDE WILLIAMS (Guy) knock­out 2:45 of 1st round.