Nobody beats Pacquiao, Fernandez

By Al S. Mendoza

WELL, what did I say?

I said Manny Pacquiao would win by knockout.

He did.

He knocked out Mexican Jorge Solis last Sunday, April 15, in San Antonio, Texas.

I also said Manny Pacquiao would win in three rounds.

He didn’t.

He knocked out Solis in the eighth round.

One-one.  Fifty percent. Not bad.

The hardest to predict, indeed, is the ending of a fight.

We can only guess.  Bottom line is, it’s the fighter who decides when to end a fight.

It’s always easier to predict the outcome of a fight than picking which round the fight would end.

With a fighter like Pacquiao, you are virtually safe if you say he’d win by knockout.

But choosing the round Pacquiao would finish off his foe-that’s really hard.

We will never know what’s in the boxer’s mind when he’s already up there fighting in the ring.

In his last fight, Pacquiao had obviously tried toying with Solis.

I said Solis was, at 5-foot-7, a mere shade of the 5-foot-6 Pacquiao.

Wrong. Solis was much taller than I thought.

The height difference-not including the disparity in reach -turned out to be the most crucial factor in the fight.

Pacquiao couldn’t bore into the defenses of Solis, whose height and reach he had both used to advantage.

And Solis could weave and duck, making it difficult for Pacquiao to connect with his punches.

He was not a patsy after all and, early in the fight, I had changed my mind about his worth as a fighter. His unbeaten record of 34 fights, including 23 knockouts, was no fluke after all.

But Pacquiao being also a thinking, smart fighter, he would soon penetrate Solis’ seemingly impregnable wall of defense.

Pacquiao did it by employing body blows and a rain of punches to baffle Solis.

But Solis was not an easy customer.

In the fifth, Solis staggered Pacquiao with a crisp right to the chin. Only a fighter’s natural instinct of survival saved Pacquiao from further harm.

Stung by that punch, Pacquiao began the sixth with fire in his eyes.

But as Pacquiao tried to initiate a brawl, he absorbed a cut above the left eye on an accidental head butt.

That proved to be the undoing of Solis.

The cut so angered Pacquiao that he threw punches all over.  He must have unleashed a hundred or so blows you’d think FPJ, and not Pacquiao, was up there fighting Solis.

When the round was over, I knew the end for Solis was near.

True enough, after another vicious Pacquiao attack in Round 7, Pacquiao finished off Solis with 1 minute 14 seconds left in Round 8.

Pacquiao scored the first knockdown in the eighth hitting the left ear of Solis with a left hook after a right-left-right combination to the face.

In the second knockdown seconds later, Pacquiao whacked Solis’ right ear with a left straight after another barrage of shots to the body and face.

Solis had difficulty beating the count in the second knockdown, forcing referee Vic Drakulich to rule the Mexican loser by knockout.

By lasting that long against Pacquiao, I raise a glass to Solis, who was tougher than I thought.

It was Pacquiao’s 35th knockout victory, improving his record to 44 wins against 3 defeats and 2 draws.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The man out to beat Pacquiao is yet to be born.

In the same breath, the man to beat Al Fernandez as mayor of Dagupan is yet to be born, too.

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/general-admission/)

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