BOBBY Pacquiao fought with heart, but unfortunately, his toughness and courage couldn’t last 10 rounds against Mexican Humberto Soto.
The younger Pacquiao was nowhere near his hype and the brother of the 2006 Boxer of the Year awardee fell on his knees as Soto delivered his killer blow in the seventh round of a scheduled 10-round contest in the undercard of the Miguel Cotto vs. Zab Judah event at the Madison Square Garden in New York.
Bobby fought gallantly and bravely, but Soto (42-5-2, 26 KOs) was a lot tougher, meaner, more experienced and hungrier as he stopped the Filipino at the 1:48 mark of the seventh.
The win earned Soto a possible shot at Manny, who was shown at ringside covering his face with his hands as he looked up just as his brother went down.
“Bobby is a real warrior, but Manny is much busier, throws a lot more punches and hits harder,” Soto said in a report posted at philboxing.com.
Soto started the ball rolling when he dropped Pacquiao in the opening round, using a body shot and a left to the head with just a few seconds left.
Pacquiao took it well, and was grinning as he waited for the referee to finish his count.
There were no smiles on Pacquiao’s face as Soto continued his assault in the fourth, opening a cut above Pacquiao’s right eye.
However, the Mexican got too eager and Pacquiao managed to rock him with a solid right. Pacquiao tried for the kill but Soto was too clever to escape from that ordeal until the bell ended the fourth round.
Soto got cautious in the next two rounds, before that fateful seventh, when he wobbled Pacquiao with a hard right to the head, and downed him with a stingy blow to the body.
Pacquiao was on all fours on the corner and even failed to get up after the referee counted him out. Fortunately, he stood on his own moments after.
Purse
Espn.com reported that Soto earned $150,000 for his seven-round workout, while Pacquiao, who lost for the 12th time in his career, got $135,000.
In the main event, Cotto gave the sellout crowd what it came for: a knockout of one of its own.
The popular Puerto Rican welterweight thrilled his fans, who made up a majority of the filled-to-the-rafters Madison Square Garden, by stopping Brooklyn’s Judah in the 11th round to keep his WBA welterweight title.
With chants of “Cotto! Cotto!” and “Puerto Rico! Puerto Rico!” rocking the building, Cotto knocked down Judah earlier in the round before finishing off his 30th straight win at 49 seconds. It was the third straight year Cotto fought in the Garden on the eve of New York’s Puerto Rican Day parade, and he gave the raucous crowd of 20,658 a terrific show. (RCM With AP)
