GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Philippines — Bobby Pacquiao wants to face Mexican boxer Humberto Soto again and he said this was the only favor he was asking from his promoter and elder brother Manny Pacquiao.
“I want a rematch with Soto,” Bobby told reporters here during the grand welcome ceremony tendered by the city government for his homecoming Thursday.
Bobby claimed he lost to Soto not because the Mexican fighter was a better pugilist than him but because of a cut he sustained from an accidental head butt during their 10-round duel at the Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday.
He said he wanted the rematch to avenge his loss.
“After the rematch, whatever the outcome, my brother can have his own chance to face Soto,” Bobby said in the vernacular.
Dionisia, Pacquiao’s mother, said she wanted Bobby to quit boxing already.
She said boxing did not appear to be Bobby’s destined career and that her younger son should try another profession instead.
But Mayor Pedro Acharon Jr. disagreed with her.
Acharon said Bobby should instead face his recent ring debacle with more discipline, hard work and determination.
“He is still too young to quit boxing,” he said of the 27-year-old fighter.
Acharon also urged Bobby not to consider his defeat a setback.
He said Bobby has nothing to be ashamed of as he fought gallantly despite a cut in his right eyebrow.
