TASMANIAN national featherweight champion Luke Jackson won his first professional bout on Tasmanian soil at on Saturday night at Hobart’s City Hall.
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The 30-year-old, former Australian Olympic team captain disposed his opponent in former world title challenger Nouldy Manakane, of Indonesia, with a knockout in the third round.
In front of a big home crowd cheering him on Jackson started strongly putting Manakane on the back foot and opened up a cut above his eye in the second round before putting him on the canvas midway through the third round.
The victory takes the Tasmanian’s professional record to 9-0 and sets him up for some bigger fights to come.
Jackson’s Australian featherweight title which he claimed with his eighth professional win in March with a split points decision against Will Young was not on the line in the bout.
Jackson said pre-fight that he expected the fight against Manakane to be his tough professional contest to date after fighting his brother Reuben in Victoria last December.
The 31-year-old Indonesian had won 29 of his 48 pro fights before the Jackson fight, 18 by knockout and drawn two.
However he had only won five of his last 14 since April 2012 when he lost a WBA world bantamweight title fight.
The Jackson-Manakane fight was the first professional bout in Tasmania since Daniel Geale defended his IBF world middleweight title for the second time against Osumanu Adama at the Derwent Entertainment Centre in March 2012.