Pacquiao undercard has two title bouts

Manny Pacquiao’s return to the ring serves as the main event on tonight’s pay-per-view boxing card at San Antonio’s Alamodome, but the undercard offers two world championship bouts.

Jorge Arce (46-3-1, 35 knockouts) of Mexico, a colorful puncher, will challenge another Mexican, World Boxing Council super-flyweight champion Cristian Mijares (30-3-2, 11 KOs).

Arce, a former WBC light-flyweight champion, last fought in January, dominating in a unanimous decision over Julio Ler at Anaheim’s Honda Center. Mijares is making his second title defense.

Former champion Brian Viloria (19-1-1) of Hawaii and Edgar Sosa (26-5) of Mexico will fight for the vacant WBC light-flyweight title.

Viloria, 26, lost the title by a unanimous decision in November to Mexican Omar Nino in Las Vegas, but a subsequent drug test found methamphetamine in Nino’s system. Nino was stripped of the title and temporarily suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Sosa is the WBC’s second-ranked contender. Both title fights are scheduled for 12 rounds.

In the main event, Pacquiao, the 2006 Ring magazine fighter of the year who defeated Erik Morales, Mexico’s former world champion, twice last year, will fight unbeaten super-featherweight Jorge Solis (30-0-2, 23 knockouts) of Mexico in a scheduled 12-round bout.

Despite concerns that Pacquiao (43-3-2, 33 KOs) has been distracted by an ongoing legal battle for his promotional rights and his run for a seat in the Philippines’ House of Representatives next month, his trainer Justin Fortune says the boxer is “physically fit and strong.”

Fortune is expected to be joined in Pacquiao’s corner tonight by the boxer’s lead trainer, Freddie Roach, who was hired to train Oscar De La Hoya in Puerto Rico for De La Hoya’s May 5 fight against unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas. Roach is scheduled to arrive in San Antonio today, Fortune said.

Solis, 27, is the World Boxing Council’s second-ranked contender and the older brother of International Boxing Federation light-flyweight champion Ulises Solis. Jorge Solis, of Guadalajara, says he wants to avenge losses his countrymen Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera suffered against Pacquiao.

“I hold the pride of Mexico in my two fists,” Solis said at a news conference this week.

Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (30-0-1, 23 KOs) will fight a 10-round welterweight bout against Anthony Shuler (20-4-1, 14 KOs) of Indianapolis.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

*

THE CARD

* Manny Pacquiao (43-3-2)

vs. Jorge Solis (30-0-2).

* Jorge Arce (46-3-1)

vs. Cristian Mijares (30-3-2)

for Mijares’ World Boxing Council super-flyweight title.

* Brian Viloria (19-1-1)

vs. Edgar Sosa (26-5) for vacant WBC light-flyweight title.

* Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (30-0-1) vs. Anthony Shuler (20-4-1).

* When: Tonight, 6 PDT.

* Where: San Antonio.

* TV: Pay-per-view.