Soto Downs The Other Pacquiao

Be careful what you wish for, Humberto Soto, because you just might get it.

You might well land that date you are seeking, a revenge special, with Manny Pacquiao, after you landed a felonious left hook that stopped Bobby Pacquiao in the seventh round at Madison Square Garden on Saturday evening.

The Mexican Soto (42-5-2, 26 KOs) handled Pacquiao (27-13-3, 12 KOs) in a battle of super featherweights, and “La Zorrita” is steadily building up his profile in the 130 pound neighborhood.

Both fighters weighed 131 pounds at MSG.

Pacquiao was sent to the canvas in the first round, from a Soto shove. The lesser light brother is a southpaw, like Manny, but he didn't get the same parcel of genes his older (by one year) bro did.

Early on, the two fought at close quarters, with Soto's shorter, powerful launches finding their mark often.

In the third, Pacquiao decided to move more, and saved himself some punishment. But he ditched the strategy in the last 30 seconds and Soto landed flush uppercuts.

A cut opened over Pacquiao's eye in the fourth and the ref stopped the action to let the doc take a look. Right after that pause, Pacquiao landed a right hook that scored heavily, and he repeated the move twice more. The 26-year-old Soto, wobbled noticeably, turned it up a notch, but Pacquiao pressed the action, and one wondered whether the tide would turn.

The cut started bleeding again early in the fifth, but Soto isn't a jab-centric sort, and maybe missed an opportunity to close the show when he didn't focus on the wound.

Soto looked on message in the sixth, stepping up his output, as the blood looked to be obscuring Pacquiao's vision field.

In the seventh, Soto landed a monster straight right that nearly felled Pacquiao, and  that gave him the opportunity to load up and land a snarly left hook to the body, a classic rib-obliteraotor.

The end came at 1:48 in the seventh.

Before the feature bout, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. avenged his father's last loss, in his father's last fight, to Grover Wiley.

Junior is in a higher class than the 32-year-old Nebraskan, who caught the 43-year-old Mexican legend at the tail end of his glorious career, on Sept. 17,  2005 in Arizona.

He's also built differently, as he stands 5-11, versus dad's 5-7 measurement. dad, by the way, yelled encouragement to his boy, who dropped Wiley in the first with a body shot. He dropped him again in the third with a body blow, and repeated the act moments later. This time, the ref counted to 10, and the son successfully regained some family honor.

The 21-year-old offspring of the legend can really place the left hook accurately, and his promoter, Top Rank thinks the world of him.

The end came at 2:27 of the third.

Chavez Junior will fight Arturo Gatti in the fall if the Human Highlight Film gets past Contender Alfonso Gomez next month.

Will the kid win 89 straight fights before tasting defeat? Will he win six world titles, and draw 136,000 people in an arena to see him do his thing? No. But he ain't hamburger either. He may not be filet mignon, but t-bone ain't nothin to turn your nose up at.