Just how tough is Jorge Solis?
Well, according to Bob Arum, if Solis were to fight Marco Antonio Barrera instead of Manny Pacquiao, the Top Rank big boss said “I didn’t know who would win that fight?”
In a recent interview with fightnews.com, the legendary promoter described Solis, undefeated in 32 pro fights with 23 knockouts, as a combination of a boxer and a puncher.
“He’s a combination. He is not a brawler. We knew that,” said Arum of the boxer from Guadalajara who will climb the ring with Pacquiao at Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas on April 14.
Pacquiao is in the final phase of his preparations for the coming fight, his first since he demolished Erik Morales in three rounds last November at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas.
Pacquiao trained almost four weeks in Gen. Santos City and has spent two weeks at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood. He has logged close to a hundred rounds in sparring.
Last Saturday, Pacquiao went full 12 rounds against four sparring partners. He showed so much energy that his conditioning coach, Justin Fortune, had to pull him back at times.
“He just wants to keep on going we had to pull him back,” said Fortune, pinching in for Freddie Roach who is in Puerto Rico handling Oscar dela Hoya’s training for a May 5 showdown with Floyd Mayweather.
Barrera lost to Pacquiao in November of 2003 but pulled off a string of victories, including one over Morales the following year for the WBC super-featherweight title.
But Barrera just couldn’t hold on to the belt anylonger, absorbing a bitter loss to Juan Manuel Marquez last month. Marquez and Barrera had both hoped to meet Pacquiao soon.
Arum said the choice of Solis, over a number of fighters, was purely that of Pacquiao’s, as the Top Rank owner reacted to a statement made by Roach that he was not consulted in making the choice.
“We submitted the fighter(s) to Manny and if Manny felt that Freddie needed to be consulted, he would have consulted Freddie. In other words, it is not my job to consult the trainer.
“I mean, I didn’t say ‘this is the guy you got to fight.’ I said ‘here is a guy I think is very good.’”
He just fought for us in Vegas. He is a tremendous fighter. He is very, very good. I mean I am not going to put a bad fight on,” Arum said.
