PACQUIAO-MÁRQUEZ
4
Saturday, December 8 at MGM Grand in Las
Vegas
Presented Live By HBO Pay-Per-View®
Tickets Go On Sale Friday,
September 28
LAS VEGAS, NEV. – Fighter of the Decade MANNY “Pacman” PACQUIAO of the
Philippines and four-division world champion JUAN MANUEL “Dinamita” MÁRQUEZ of México will go mano a mano
and toe-to-toe once again in a 12-round welterweight battle between two of this
era’s top pound for pound and evenly matched fighters. Pacquiao-Márquez 4, the eagerly
anticipated fourth act of their fistoric rivalry that has had fans and media
standing on their feet for 36 action-packed rounds, will take place Saturday, December 8. It will be produced and distributed
Live by HBO Pay-Per-View from the MGM Grand Garden Arena, in Las Vegas,
Nev.
Promoted
by Top Rank, in association with MP Promotions, Zanfer Promotions, Márquez
Boxing, Tecate and MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, tickets to Pacquiao-Márquez 4
will go on sale Friday, September 28 at 1:00 p.m. ET / 10:00 a.m.
PT. Tickets are priced at $1,200, $900, $600, and
$400 and are limited to 10 per person. To charge by phone with a major credit
card, call Ticketmaster (800) 745-3000. Tickets also are available for purchase at www.mgmgrand.com or www.ticketmaster.com.
“Our previous fights against each
other brought out the best in us,” said Pacquiao. “Of all the opponents I have fought,
Juan Manuel Márquez is the only one who was able to anticipate many of my
moves and effectively counter a lot of them. I underestimated him in our last fight
but I will not make that mistake this time. Freddie Roach and I will make the most
of every training day to prepare for Juan Manuel which is why my all my training
will take place at Wild Card in Hollywood. No days will be wasted traveling between training camps in the
Philippines and California. When I
walk into the ring on December 8, it will be another opportunity to bring honor
and glory to my country and to my fellow Filipinos in the Philippines and around
the world.”
"I
am very excited to be fighting Manny again,” countered Márquez. “I beat him the
first three fights but did not get the decision; this time I will beat him again
and I also will get the victory officially. It’s an election year and I am going to
win by a landslide."
"This
fight I truly believe will be the best of the four that these two great
warriors
have engaged in. After
Pacquiao won a close decision from Márquez, both Pacquiao and Márquez want to
win decisively to erase any doubts," said
Hall of Fame promoter Bob
Arum.
"Fight fans everywhere love rivalries and the
competition between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Márquez has been intense and
furious since day one and still is unresolved,” said Mark Taffet of HBO Pay-Per-View. “We
are delighted to work once again with both of these future Hall of
Famers.”
"The
third battle between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Márquez was one of the
biggest fights of 2011 and we look forward to another sensational event in
December," said Richard Sturm, president of Entertainment & Sports
for MGM Resorts International. "It is an honor to host this international
championship event as we end another successful year of boxing at MGM
Grand."
Pacquiao (54-4-2, 38
KOs), the lone congressional representative from the Sarangani province in the
Philippines, returns to the Fight Capital of the World as the only fighter to
win eight world titles in as many weight divisions. A three-time
Fighter of the Year and the Boxing Writers Association of America’s “Fighter of
the Decade,” Pacquiao’s resume features victories over future Hall of Famers,
including Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales,
Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley and Márquez.
From 2008 to 2010, five of his seven victories were world title victories
in five different divisions, where he dethroned super featherweight champion
Márquez, lightweight champion David Diaz, junior welterweight champion Hatton,
welterweight champion Cotto and he annihilated three-time world champion Antonio
Margarito for the vacant super welterweight title. Pacquiao’s seven-year,
15-bout winning streak came to an end on June 9, when he lost his World Boxing
Organization (WBO) welterweight crown to undefeated WBO junior welterweight
champion Timothy Bradley, Jr. via a controversial split decision. Pacquiao’s
knockout victories over Cotto and Hatton in 2009, his victories over Joshua
Clottey and Margarito in 2010, his wins against Mosley and Márquez in
2011 as well as his disputed loss to Bradley in June have combined for more
than seven million pay-per-view buys making Pacquiao a pay-per-view king.
No boxer sold more live tickets in the U.S. than Pacquiao in 2010 and 2011,
making him a pound-for-pound monarch in the ring and at the box office.
Márquez (54-6-1, 39 KOs), of México City, is one of only a rare
few fighters from México to have won world titles in four different weight
divisions. He captured his first
world title – the vacant International Boxing Federation (IBF) featherweight
championship – with a seventh-round stoppage of three-time featherweight
champion Manuel Medina in 2003. He
unified the title that same year with a decisive victory over World Boxing
Association (WBA) featherweight titlist Derrick Gainer. Márquez successfully
defended the titles three times during his three-year reign, which included
unanimous decision victories over Victor Polo and Orlando Salido and a Draw with
Pacquiao. After losing the crown to
Chris John and winning the WBO interim featherweight crown, all in 2006, Márquez
moved up in weight to dethrone the legendary Marco Antonio Barrera and claim his
World Boxing Council (WBC) super featherweight championship belt in 2007. After successfully defending the title,
by a unanimous decision over Ricky Juarez, he lost the title in his 2008 rematch
with Pacquiao by the slimmest of margins – a one point split decision. Since that fight, Márquez has won six of
his last eight fights, including knockout victories of Joel Casamayor, Juan Diaz
and Michael Katsidis -- the latter two in World Boxing Association (WBA) / WBO
lightweight championship fights. In
his last fight, on April 14, Márquez won his fourth world title in as many
divisions, capturing the WBO interim junior welterweight championship with a
dominant 12-round unanimous decision over Serhiy Fedchenko.
The
Pacquiao vs. Márquez telecast, which begins at 9:00 p.m. ET / 6:00 p.m. PT, will
be produced and distributed live by HBO Pay-Per-View and will be available to
more than 92 million pay-per-view homes. HBO Pay-Per-View, a division of Home
Box Office, Inc., is the leading supplier of event programming to the
pay-per-view industry. Follow HBO Boxing news at www.hbo.com and at www.facebook.com/hboboxing. Use the hashtag
#PacquiaoMarquez to join the conversation on Twitter. For Pacquiao vs. Márquez updates, log on to www.toprank.com or www.hbo.com.