USA
Senator Manny Pacquiao takes a brief break from politics to challenge Jessie Vargas for the WBO welterweight title at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
After claiming a unanimous decision over Tim Bradley in their rubber match in April, Pacquiao said he was heading into retirement from boxing and focusing on his political career.
Pacquiao, 37, won his May election to the senate in the Philippines but decided on another challenge in the ring and found it against Vargas, who is 10 years younger.
“It’s an honour for me to challenge a champion. He’s a champion. You cannot say a title holder…he’s right. He’s the champion, he’s defending his belt, I’ll respect that, I am a challenger, so let the best man win on Saturday,” Pacquiao said before the fight. Vargas is making the first defense of the title he won in March with a ninth-round stoppage of fellow American Sadam Ali and believes beating boxing legend Pacquiao would put him on another level.
“It’s the perfect time, I have wanted this fight for quite some time now. Why? because Manny was known as the best. In order to be known as the best you have to beat the best,” Vargas said.
But will Jessie Vargas beat Pacquiao and become the boxing star he always wanted to be? We are not yet there. We have to watch the fight.
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