The two biggest boxing stars to come out of the Philippines will be fighting on the same show for the first time on Nov. 5.
And both are involved in title fights at the Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of UNLV in las Vegas. The pay-per-view event will not be aired by either HBO or Showtime, but instead will be handled by the promoter of the event, Top Rank, Inc.
Manny Pacquiao, the first-term Filipino senator and former congressman from General Santos City, an eight-division champion, will come out of retirement to fight Jessie Vargas for Vargas? WBO welterweight title in the main event.
In the co-main event, Nonito Donaire, a four-division champion and current WBO super bantamweight champion, will make the second defense of his title against undefeated Las Vegan Jessie Magdaleno, fighting for a major title for the first time.
?(Pacquiao and Donaire) are the two biggest legends out of the Philippines and they?ve never fought on the same card,? Top Rank President Todd duBoef said. ?And both are former fighters of the year. The quality of their performances are very high.?
A third title fight on the card will feature WBO featherweight champion Oscar Valdez (20-0, 18 KOs), making his first title defense against a yet-to-be-named opponent.
Boxers Manny Pacquiao, left, and Jessie Vargas pose during a news conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Sept. 8.(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Pacquiao, 37, is ending a short retirement to fight Vargas. It is his first fight since being elected to the Philippines Senate in May. A month earlier, Pacquiao (58-6-2, 38 KOs) won what he said then was his final fight, defeating Timothy Bradley by unanimous decision in their third meeting at the MGM Grand.
Last month, Pacquiao confirmed that he would end his retirement to fight Vargas for the title he once owned.
Vargas (27-1, 10 KOs) is coming off his best career performance, a ninth-round TKO victory against then unbeaten Sadam Ali at the DC Armory in Washington, D.C. It was the first fight for Vargas under new trainer Dewey Cooper.
?Against Sadam Ali it was Dewey who put together the game plan,? Vargas said last week. ?It was my hard right which stopped Sadam and if you remember it was a hard right which (Juan Manuel) Marquez put on Pacquiao (sixth-round KO in 2012) to end that fight.?
Donaire, 33, nicknamed ?The Filipino Flash,? won the vacant super bantamweight title title in December against Cesar Juarez in Puerto Rico, and defended it against Zsolt Bedak in Cebu City, The Philippines in April. Donaire (37-3, 24 KOs), like Pacquiao, is a Top Rank fighter as is his opponent, 24-year-old Magdaleno (23-0 (17 KOs). Donaire was born in the Philippines but left with his family for the U.S. when he was a child.
