NEW YORK — Bobby Pacquiao’s future will be decided Saturday night (Sunday morning in Manila).
Either Pacquiao goes into the next level with an upset victory over Humberto Soto of Mexico or he starts to ponder what to do next in the likelihood of a devastating loss at Madison Square Garden, long known as the Mecca of boxing.
With his heralded elder brother Manny cheering at ringside, Bobby aims for a crack at the bigtime when he collides with the dangerous Soto in a lightweight ten-rounder underneath the headlining Miguel Cotto-Zab Judah welterweight clash.
During Friday’s official weigh-in in an accessible area of the Garden, Pacquiao and Soto both weighed 131 lbs, two lbs under the agreed limit.
Pacquiao was the first to tip the computerized scales and he reenacted the flexing of muscles that his brother Manny made famous the past few years, while Soto just stepped on the scales without exciting the boisterous crowd which gathered to see Cotto and Judah size each other up.
Shortly after the weigh-in, Pacquiao walked back to his 16th floor room at the Affinia with a view of the Garden to eat a plateful of steam rice, beef nilaga, chicken stew and a plateful of fruits with the help of two bottles of Gatorade.
“I am ready to rumble,” said Pacquiao, who will get instructions from Freddie Roach in the corner with Buboy Fernandez providing backup.
This will be Pacquiao’s second appearance at the famed arena after making his auspicious debut there almost a year ago against the faded former world champion n Kevin Kelley, who Pacquiao stopped in four rounds.
Soto, however, is young at 27 and is far more dangerous than Kelley.
Rated highly by the world governing bodies, Soto holds a points win over the rugged Rocky Juarez, the Texan puncher who gave Marco Antonio Barrera a taste of hell last year.
Still, Pacquiao is unperturbed and remains upbeat of his chances.
“My brother Bobby trained long and hard for this fight so I am confident that he can pull it off,” Manny told Mexican reporters later in the day at the Copacabana.
