Juan Manuel Marquez

Manny Pacquiao's skyrocketing popularity created chaos that no mere mortal could be expected to balance. Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 knockouts) appeared more human than ever in his last fight, however. As he prepares now for his next bout June 9 against Timothy Bradley, Pacquiao and his trainer acknowledge Everyman's frailty has been his most imposing contender. "All the distractions caught up to Manny in his last fight," Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach said Thursday of the boxer's narrow decision over Juan Manuel Marquez in November.

Manny Pacquiao's skyrocketing popularity created chaos that no mere mortal could be expected to balance. Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 knockouts) appeared more human than ever in his last fight, however. As he prepares now for his next bout June 9 against Timothy Bradley, Pacquiao and his trainer acknowledge Everyman's frailty has been his most imposing contender. "All the distractions caught up to Manny in his last fight," Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach said Thursday of the boxer's narrow decision over Juan Manuel Marquez in November.

If all goes as planned Saturday night, Juan Manuel Marquez, the veteran technician, and Brandon Rios, the young aggressor, will clear their final hurdles to a July 14 junior-welterweight showdown at Cowboys Stadium outside Dallas. "That's what I'd like to do," fight promoter Bob Arum said Friday. "We have to discuss terms with both, they both have to win, nothing is finalized, but it'd be a great fight. "Brandon Rios is a tremendous warrior. Marquez is a masterful boxer. " Saturday night at 6 p.m. on pay-per-view television, Rios (29-0-1, 22 knockouts)

If all goes as planned Saturday night, Juan Manuel Marquez, the veteran technician, and Brandon Rios, the young aggressor, will clear their final hurdles to a July 14 junior-welterweight showdown at Cowboys Stadium outside Dallas. "That's what I'd like to do," fight promoter Bob Arum said Friday. "We have to discuss terms with both, they both have to win, nothing is finalized, but it'd be a great fight. "Brandon Rios is a tremendous warrior. Marquez is a masterful boxer. " Saturday night at 6 p.m. on pay-per-view television, Rios (29-0-1, 22 knockouts)

MARQUEZ-DIAZ II Who: Juan Manuel Marquez (50-5-1, 37 KOs) vs. Juan Diaz (35-3, 17 KOs) for WBA/WBO lightweight championship. Marquez weighed in at 133 1/2 pounds, Diaz at 135. Where: Mandalay Bay Events Center, Las Vegas. When: Saturday, card begins at 6 p.m. TV: HBO pay-per-view, $49.95. The fight also will be shown in high definition at selected movie theaters; for information: http://www.fathomevents.com Undercard: Robert Guerrero vs. Joel Casamayor, junior welterweights; Daniel Jacobs vs. Dmitry Pirog, middleweights.

Juan Manuel Marquez endured a classic battle with Michael Katsidis on Saturday, retaining his lightweight world title with a ninth-round onslaught of punches that caused referee Kenny Bayless to stop the fight. Mexico's Marquez battered the Australian challenger in the ninth round, landing hard uppercuts and hard rights that went mostly unanswered. When Katsidis backed up and took two more rights to the left side of his head, Bayless stepped in at the 2-minute 14-second mark, waving off the bout in front of 4,920 at MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Reporting from Las Vegas -- Juan Manuel Marquez weighed in at a sculpted 142 pounds Friday for his third fight against Manny Pacquiao, who came in a pound below the welterweight-title catch-weight limit at 143. Marquez, 38, flashed noticeably larger biceps and an ultimate six-pack abdomen after an 11-week training course under a controversial new strength coach. The plan for Saturday night at MGM Grand Garden Arena, Marquez says, is to make the punches he lands against Pacquiao have more effect.

Juan Manuel Marquez is making an argument that's impossible to buy. Twice, the top Mexican fighter in the world has fought Manny Pacquiao ? the first time in 2004 was a draw, the rematch in 2008 was a split-decision loss that Marquez's camp bitterly protested. No one else comes close to Pacquiao now. Not the 17-pounds-heavier Antonio Margarito, not junior-middleweight world champion Miguel Cotto ? and the reclusive Floyd Mayweather Jr. isn't willing to let us learn. So how can Marquez honestly sit there in his spot as the world's third-ranked pound-for-pound fighter and say he's not obsessing about getting a third fight against Pacquiao?

Manny Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum, said Tuesday that lightweight world champion Juan Manuel Marquez has accepted a revised offer to fight Pacquiao in November. The hitch is that Marquez's promoter, Golden Boy, has the contractual opportunity to match the deal, and its chief executive says he plans to. Golden Boy Chairman Richard Schaefer told The Times that it's his understanding Marquez has agreed to a Pacquiao fight at a lowered welterweight catch weight of 144 pounds, with $5 million guaranteed for Marquez.

Manny Pacquiao's road to stardom was established by power punching and a pair of compelling back-and-forth bouts against his rival from Mexico, Juan Manuel Marquez. As Pacquiao prepares for his third fight against Marquez on Nov. 12 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the Filipino star's attention is locked on the goal to reaffirm his power reputation by quieting Marquez once and for all. "Everybody knows Marquez has been talking too much," Pacquiao said Wednesday as he and Marquez continued their international promotional tour at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Oxnard's Brandon Rios boarded a six-hour flight to Miami for a news conference, then took the return trip home for Tuesday's session with reporters in Los Angeles. Yuriorkis Gamboa attended neither event. This isn't good, considering Gamboa, the unbeaten world featherweight champion, is scheduled to fight unbeaten former world lightweight champion Rios on April 14 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas - the lynchpin event of HBO's World Championship Boxing program this year.

Spend enough time around hard-core boxing followers, and their opinions begin taking the shape of gospel. Timothy Bradley is stronger and younger than Manny Pacquiao, the argument starts. Some say that Pacquiao was "exposed" as an older, less powerful fighter in his narrow November decision over Juan Manuel Marquez. And that Bradley, 28, can beat Pacquiao, 33, in their June 9 fight at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Wait, what? "It's a tough test, this is a young guy coming up to take on the established guy and being undefeated can make you highly resilient to losing," Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach said about Bradley during a Beverly Hills news conference Tuesday.

They served lunch Tuesday at a Manny Pacquiao news conference. That was quickly followed by some real food for thought. The official fanfare was for the announcement of Pacquiao's next fight, a June 9 Las Vegas matchup with Tim Bradley of Palm Springs. That was not news. Everybody who cares knows everything about Pacquiao the Top Rank Promotion machine is willing to make public. Its job is to hype and sell, and seldom has a promotional firm had more to work with than the likable, recently unbeatable boxing congressman from the Philippines.

Timothy Bradley agreed in principle Thursday to fight Manny Pacquiao on June 9 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, fulfilling a lifetime ambition for the unbeaten, Cathedral City-based world junior-welterweight champion. "This is about being the No. 1 fighter in the world, and that's what my goal has been for as long as I can remember," Bradley said. Bradley declined to reveal terms of his agreement, which he said could be signed as early as Friday, but his guarantee is believed to be more than $5 million.

Hours after Floyd Mayweather Jr. urged Manny Pacquiao to "step up punk" and fight him May 5, the Filipino boxing star answered with his own message: Just wait a few more weeks. Pacquiao huddled with his promoter Bob Arum on Wednesday in the Philippines and agreed the best course for pursuing a long-awaited fight date against Mayweather is to schedule it for late May, or, ideally, June 9. Mayweather faces a June 1 date to report for an already delayed 90-day jail term in a domestic violence case, but Arum said he'd be "willing to chip in for lawyers' fees" to get that date moved again so a June 9 bout could occur.

A Las Vegas judge sentenced boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. to 90 days in jail on Wednesday for his role in a 2010 domestic violence case involving two of his children and their mother. Mayweather pleaded guilty to a reduced domestic-violence misdemeanor charge and no contest to two harassment misdemeanor charges in the Clark County (Nev.) courthouse. The jail sentence complicates, and perhaps scraps, plans for a late-spring fight between Mayweather (42-0) and Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao.

World lightweight boxing champion Juan Manuel Marquez of Mexico is in a battle over his future that could result in his splitting from Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions to land a coveted shot at Manny Pacquiao, whose bouts are among the biggest paydays in the history of the sport. Marquez, the biggest name left among Golden Boy's fighters, has been holed up in his native country, knowing that a bitter feud between Golden Boy and Pacquiao's promoter, Top Rank, has prevented him from stepping into the ring with the Filipino superstar.

The boos started at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas right after the ring announcer read the scorecards and revealed that Manny Pacquiao had won a close majority decision over Juan Manuel Marquez. The booing was understandable. Most of the boxing world wanted Pacquiao to defeat Marquez convincingly Nov. 12 to set up the long-awaited super-fight between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. But what I saw from my second-row seat at ringside was something different — from the HBO broadcast team, from my colleagues watching on television, even from the ringside judges.

Manny Pacquiao's promoter said Monday that the Filipino superstar prefers a fourth fight against Juan Manuel Marquez to a super-fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. "That fight [Mayweather] can still be there for us in November [2012]," Bob Arum told The Times. That position brought a strong reaction from rival promoter and former fighter Oscar De La Hoya, who helps promote Mayweather and said the 42-0 welterweight champion has already reserved May 5 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for boxing's dream fight.