By Rey Danseco

BOBBY Pacquiao took a jackpot when he scored a knock down in the second round to earn a split decision win over 10 rounds against former world champion Carlos “The Famous” Hernandez Saturday (Sunday in Manila) at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Two judges favored Pacquiao 95-94 and 95-93 on their scorecards. The third judge had it 97-92 for Hernandez, who suffered a second consecutive split decision loss.

This writer saw it 95-94 also in favor of Pacquiao, a younger brother of superstar Manny Pacquiao – who was at ringside with wife Jinkee.

Pacquiao earned at least half of the contracted $90,000 purse (more than P5,040,000) in his third appearance in the United States.

Pacquiao’s other previous victories in the US was a unanimous decision over patsy Mexican Oscar Villa-Arrieta, who then had only three wins in 27 starts, on Nov. 12 of last year and a seventh round stoppage of the very capable American Carlos Navarro to capture the World Boxing Council Continental Americas super featherweight title in a ESPN2-televised bout at Table Mountain Casino in Friant, California.

The 5’7” Filipino southpaw improved to 26-11-3 win-loss-draw record with 11 knockouts. While Hernandez, now 34 years old, dropped to 41-6-1 with 26 KOs.

Pacquiao caught Hernandez with crack left cross, sending the left glove to the canvas of the fighter from West Covina, California of El Salvadorian decent at the closing seconds of the second round.

The 25-year old native of General Santos City pressed the action at the start of the third, busted Hernandez’s nose where blood flowed profusely. But the pre-fight favorite American came back strong with his own combinations, proving he’s still in the fight.

Hernandez had a moment from round 4 when he started to pound Pacquiao’s right side of the body with left hooks onwards – but Pacquiao ignored the pain.

“Actually, talagang nagpokus ako sa fight, (inisip) ko na sana’y manalo ako,” sabi ni Pacquiao, who incidentally dropped a notch in the recently released WBC world ranking to No. 14 as Hernandez also went down a place to No. 5.

Pacquiao came to the fight weighing at exactly the super featherweight limit at 130 pounds while Hernandez was 132.

Hernandez became a IBF super featherweight king in February 2003 and held the belt with a defense until he lost to Mexico’s Erik Morales by decision in a unification fight in July 2004.