Boxing icons Pacquiao & Mayweather all set for rematch

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

Are you all ready for the second installment of the so-called “Fight of the Century”?

On Feb. 24, 2026, boxing once again took the sporting world by storm after legends Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. agreed to run it back with a professional rematch scheduled for Sept. 20, 2026 (Philippine time).

According to multiple reports, Pacquiao-Mayweather II will be held at Sphere in Las Vegas and will be aired by the global streaming platform Netflix.

As early as 2023, rumors of the highly anticipated rematch went viral on social media when the Filipino boxing great said he is longing to face Mayweather again during the New Year’s Eve event of RIZIN, Japan’s premier MMA organization.

A welcoming development then surfaced in October 2025, when boxing outlets released a statement that Netflix is near closing a deal for a possible rematch between the two superstar boxers.

Fast-forward to today, all the rumors were finally shut down after Netflix officially announced Pacquiao-Mayweather II, to be fought in a professional setting with their respective win-loss records at stake.

Pacquiao is looking to avenge his unanimous decision loss to Mayweather in 2015, when the undefeated American unified the WBA, WBO, WBC and The Ring welterweight belts.

During their first fight, Mayweather banked on his superb defensive strategy, specifically with the high usage rate of his signature shoulder roll, while boxing’s only eight-division world champion struggled to land a volume of clean punches.

Some boxing analysts claimed that Pacquiao should’ve won that fight after playing the aggressor and forcing exchanges, while Mayweather relied mostly on his counterpunching every time the Filipino pug initiated the action.

However, all those back-and-forths and arguments can now be revisited again once the two boxing greats share the ring for the second time, seven months from now.

Before arriving in Las Vegas, both fighters will have respective exhibition bouts, with Pacquiao squaring off against Russia’s Ruslan Provodnikov, while Mayweather is set to challenge Mike Tyson on April 25, 2026, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to honor the 52nd anniversary of the legendary “Rumble in the Jungle.”