For the better part of five rounds Saturday night at the Alamodome — before he knocked out Jorge Solis with a two-fisted fury — Manny Pacquiao was struggling.
His punches were missing in bunches. His crowd-pleasing, high-rpm style was missing in action.
Simply put, Manny wasn’t being Manny.
Then in the sixth, in a Filipino flash, it happened. The two fighters clashed heads. A cut appeared. Blood flowed.
All of a sudden, the star was seeing stars. But for all practical purposes, the fight was over.
Pacquiao woke up.
“There was no trouble. I was just careful,” Pacquiao said later of his slow start. “It was hard because he’s taller and he was moving a lot. He was hard to hit.”
Like a typhoon tearing across the Pacific, the would-be congressman from the Philippines tore into Solis.
The combinations that missed their mark through much of the first five rounds landed with thudding authority.
Solis survived, until the climactic eighth when a short left hook from Pacquiao put him down the first time. A right-left combination did the same seconds later.
Solis struggled to his feet just as referee Vic Drakulich reached the count of 10.
“I decided to pressure him, make it a faster fight,” Pacquiao said.
The victory, in front of 14,793 fans — and a worldwide pay-per-view television audience — enabled Pacquiao (44-3-2, 34 KOs) to retain his WBC International super featherweight title.
It was the second resounding victory by Pacquiao at the Alamodome in two tries. Four years ago, he knocked out Marco Antonio Barrera in the 11th round.
Saturday’s late power show by the Philippine icon capped a thrilling night of ring action.
In the co-main event featuring two Mexican super flyweights, Cristian Mijares (31-3-2, 11 KOs) shocked Jorge Arce (46-4-1, 35 KOs) to retain his WBC title.
The rangy southpaw picked apart the flamboyant Arce with the pinpoint accuracy of a trained assassin. Arce, his face a bloody mask courtesy of a nasty cut on the bridge of his nose, never seemed to figure out his well-schooled foe.
The judges agreed. Mijares won by scores of 119-109, 118-110 and 117-111.
In off-TV bouts, San Antonio’s Maribel Zurita (8-8-2, 1 KO) fought to a six-round draw with Houston’s Emily Kelly (2-2-1, 1 KO) in a decision that was unpopular with the crowd.
Zurita dominated the final round and nearly had Kelly knocked out. But Kelly won enough of the first five rounds to pull out the draw.
San Antonio bantamweight Joseph Rios (2-0, 1 KO) shined in beating Lubbock’s Jeremy Valdarez (0-1) in a fourth-round TKO.
But it was Pacquiao’s night. He even had trainer Freddie Roach back in his corner. Roach flew in for the night from Puerto Rico, where he has been training Oscar De La Hoya for his May 5 showdown with Floyd Mayweather Jr.
With Roach urging his fighter to “quit fooling around” and San Antonio cutman Joe Souza tending to the cut over Pacquiao’s eye, Manny became Manny again.
And took care of business.
