LAS VEGAS, NV ? Friday afternoon at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, Manny Pacquiao (44-3-2, 35 KOs) and Marco Antonio Barrera (63-5, 42 KOs) climbed on the scales to make weight for ?Will to Win? ? Saturday night?s super-featherweight rematch to contest Pacquiao?s unconditional status as the world?s best 135-pound prizefighter, and Barrera?s ultimate legacy.
Both men made the contracted weight. A muscular, but not quite shredded, Pacquiao came in at 130, as did the taut and uncharacteristically jovial Barrera.
With promoters Oscar de la Hoya and Bob Arum reunited at a weigh-in for first time in 35 months, super-middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins presiding and Michael Buffer emceeing, Friday?s spectacle delighted the rabid hundreds of predominately Filipino and Mexican fight fans in attendance.
Next up were WBO featherweight champion Steven Luevano (33-1, 15 KOs) and challenger Antonio Davis (24-3, 12 KOs). Both men came in at the featherweight limit of 126 pounds.
Third to weigh-in were Librado Andrade (25-1, 19 KOs) and Yusaf Mack (23-1-2, 14 KOs). Set to battle for the vacant USBA super-middleweight title, both Andrade and Mack weighed 168 pounds.
Finally, Francisco Bojado (18-2, 12 KOs) and Steve Forbes (32-5, 9 KOs), the men who will open Saturday?s pay-per-view broadcast, mounted the scales. Forbes made the contracted weight of 142 pounds. Bojado, meanwhile, whose commitment to conditioning, and the sport of boxing in general, are often doubted, came in a pound overweight.
?Will to Win? should prove to be a historical happening. If somehow ? by circling to his left and outsmarting his southpaw foe ? Marco Antonio Barrera is able to beat Pacquiao, a prizefighter many consider to be the best boxer in the world, pound-for-pound, Barrera will have further confirmed his status as a Mexican ring legend.
But if Pacquiao is able to penetrate Barrera?s defense with sharp and straight left crosses and eventually stop Barrera, as odds makers are predicting, chances are very good this will be Barrera?s final professional match. Either way, a Pacquiao victory will be yet another step along ?Pacman?s? unprecedented run to the top of the prizefighting world.
Mandalay Bay doors will open at 3:00 PM local time. HBO?s pay-per-view broadcast of ?Will to Win? goes on the air, three hours later, at 6:00 PM PDT.
