Philippine boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao (centre) accompanied by his wife Jinkee (second left) and mother Dionesia waves to supporters during a victory motorcade in his hometown of Alabel, Sarangani province, yesterday as he returned home after claiming his seventh career boxing title.

BERLIN: Germany’s Zsolt Erdei has won the WBC cruiserweight world title belt with a majority decision to dethrone former champion Giacobbe Fragomeni.

Hungarian-born Erdei was awarded the fight 115-113, 115-113, 114-114 by the three judges after the fight went the full 12 rounds in front of 4,000 fans in Kiel on Saturday night.

The victory leaves Erdei, 35, with an unblemished record of 31 wins and 17 knock-outs.

This was 40-year-old Fragomeni’s second defeat of his career having lost to new WBA heavyweight champion David Haye when the pair clashed at cruiserweight in November 2006.

The Italian has 26 wins on his record with 10 knock-outs and one draw.

Meanwhile, American Andre Ward battered Mikkel Kessler yesterday, seizing the Dane’s World Boxing Association super-middleweight world title by an 11th-round technical decision.

The fight was stopped on the advice of the ringside doctor at 1:42 of the 11th round, but the cut to Kessler that prompted the move came from a head-butt so the decision came down to the scorecards.

One judge scored it 97-93, while two others saw it 98-92 for Ward, who improved to 21-0 with 13 knockouts. Kessler fell to 42-2 with 32 knockouts.

With the triumph before his hometown fans, Ward added a world title to the Olympic gold that highlighted his amateur career. Ward cemented his status among the elite super-middleweight ranks as he stunned the man who has held the WBA belt for most of the past six years.

“I just felt like it was my time,” Ward said. “I wasn’t intimidated by Kessler’s record.”

Kessler had won his last three fights since his only defeat, to Joe Calzaghe in 2007.

The “Viking Warrior” had been the favorite to emerge on top in the Super Six World Classic tournament matching six of the world’s top fighters in the division, first in a round-robin format with semi-finals and a final in 2011.

The bout, the third of three first-round fights in the tournament, brought Kessler Stateside for just the second time.

Kessler’s face was a bloody mess by the 11th round, when the ringside doctor advised a halt.

Ward rocked Kessler with an uppercut in the fourth round, then began firing off combinations.

Ward opened a cut over Kessler’s left eye in the middle rounds as the champion struggled to find a solution to the American’s busy style.

“I was kind of surprised he didn’t make the adjustments, he kept doing the same thing over and over,” Ward said. Kessler, who was backing up in the later rounds, later complained about the refereeing and said much of the damage done to him was through head-butts.

“I’m not used to that, that the referee doesn’t stop the fight when there’s holding. And he was using head-butts all the time,” Kessler said. “Every time I got in, he head-butted me. It was unfair.

“He’s coming in all the time with his head on purpose.”

Ward denied the charge.

“I think I felt two accidental head-butts,” Ward said.

“I’m not a dirty fighter. You check any of my 20 fights, I’ve never done that intentionally.

“He has three cuts, two of them were punches for sure. One of them was a head-butt.”

Ward now hasn’t lost a fight in more than a decade, since early in his amateur career.

The 25-year-old became the first US winner in the Super Six tournament, after Arthur Abraham stopped Jermain Taylor in Abraham’s adopted country Germany and Briton Carl Froch kept his World Boxing Council title with a split-decision victory over Andre Dirrell in Nottingham, England.

The defeat means Kessler’s next scheduled Super Six bout, against World Boxing Council champion Carl Froch, won’t be to unify two titles.