Local fighter wins international bout in Korea
She didn’t like the 12-hour plane flight to South Korea. She
didn’t like the accommodations, the food or the traffic either. But
Kel-C Jeffries was thrilled with the judges 100-91, 100-91, 98-92
unanimous decision in her 10-round title bout against hometown hero
Yun-Jung Jun.
Local fighter wins international bout in Korea
She didn’t like the 12-hour plane flight to South Korea. She didn’t like the accommodations, the food or the traffic either. But Kel-C Jeffries was thrilled with the judges 100-91, 100-91, 98-92 unanimous decision in her 10-round title bout against hometown hero Yun-Jung Jun.
The win marked the record eighth time that Jeffries was able to successfully defend her International Female Boxers’ Association Featherweight title – which is saying a lot considering the hostile environment that she had to fight in.
Prior to the bout, which took place in Eumsung, South Korea, about a two-hour drive from Seoul, Jeffries was convinced that without a single American judge or referee present that she would have to knock her opponent out to win the fight.
Instead, she out boxed Jun to the point that the foreign referees had no choice but to unanimously vote to keep the title in Jeffries corner. What really convinced them was a hook that landed squarely on Jun’s face in the third round, which broke her nose and sent blood pouring from her face.
“If the fight was over here they would have definitely stopped it,” Jeffries said.
One thing that Jeffries had going against her was that the bout took place on a soft, squishy ring that affected Jeffries’ ability to dance around the ring.
“It was definitely a puncher’s ring,” said Jeffries, who landed back on U.S. soil late Christmas day. “I had a lot of pressure on me. The ring was so soft that it was really tiring me out to move around. Then I nailed her inside with the hook.”
At the end of the third round, Jun’s corner tried its best to stop the bleeding and was able to control it somewhat until Jeffries connected on a solid jab that triggered the bleeding again.
As blood continued to pour out of the challenger’s face, the all-Korean panel of judges had no choice but to give Jeffries the title.
“There was a lot of pressure on me for this fight,” said Jeffries, who resides in Hollister. “She was throwing a lot of punches at me. A lot of them weren’t landing but you never know for sure what the judges are looking at. I knew that I was winning the fight, but still, you never know what they are going to do.”
Jeffries is expected to fight again somewhere much closer to home within the next few months and will fight after that sometime in June.
She said she would consider a rematch with Jun but only if she were to come to the U.S. to fight Jeffries.
Although she was thousands of miles from home, Jeffries felt that her fans from the Bay Area were with her in the ring.
“I felt that everyone was rooting for me. They were in the arena with me and I did it all for them,” she said. “One cool thing was that it was Christmas there when I left and it was Christmas here when I got home. So that was the first time I ever had two Christmases.”
And she also got to keep her No. 1 gift – her world title belt.
