Pac Man Gobbles up Diaz

By Francisco Guzman
Photos: Naoki Fukuda

The “Pac Man” Manny Pacquiao (47-3-3, 35 KO’s) practically gobbled up WBC lightweight champion David Diaz (34-2-1, 17 KO’s) this Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay of Las Vegas. Manny answered all the questions in his lightweight debut. He was too fast, too strong and too furious for the game but overmatched naturally bigger champion.

From round number one Manny was in and out with fast combinations slipping punches in the inside and was moving on his toes making it hard for Diaz to hit him with anything. In the 2^nd round Manny swarmed Diaz with punches opening up a cut on the bridge of the nose and a cut on the top of his head that was possibly from a head butt.

By the fourth round Diaz suffered yet another cut over his left eye that was looked at by the ring doctor, who felt that the fight could continue. The 5^th and 6^th round it was pretty much target practice for Pacquiao. The doctor took another look at the eye but let the fight continue yet again. The 8^th round was more of the same. Manny was actually more flat footed and was landing the harder more precise punches staggering Diaz at times. By this time Diaz was busted up badly from Paquiao accurate punches.

Manny started the 9^th on his toes again moving quickly before scoring a spectacular knock out from a short left putting Diaz on his face before referee stopped the contest at 2:24 of the ninth. Manny becomes the first Philipino lightweight champion and the first Asian four time world champion in 4 different weight classes.
 

Humberto Soto (43-7-2-27 KO’s) suffered a controversial loss to Francisco Lorenzo (33-4-14 KO’s). Soto was controlling to fight with the shorter more punishing punches before suffering a cut in the 3^rd round. Francisco was knocked down twice in the fourth but something strange happened. After the first knock down Humberto jumped on Francisco with a barrage of punches Joe Cortez stepped in like he was going to stop the contest and moved back out letting the fight to continue.

That’s when Francisco voluntarily went down on his knee while Soto was throwing punches clipping him once in the back of the head. Lorenzo stayed on the canvas while referee Joe Cortez spoke the state officials. After several minutes Cortez waved off the fight. Michael Buffer announced that Lorenzo had won the fight on a disqualification. The replayed showed that the punch, which did land on the back of the head, was not intentional.