ALL EYES ARE SET ON MANDALAY BAY
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 05 Oct 2007
Manny Pacquiao will fight Marco Antonio Barrera in a rematch on October 6 at Mandalay Bay Resort Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for the WBC International Super Featherweight Title. Their first fight took place in November 15, 2003 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Pacquiao beat Barrera by an 11th round TKO when Barrera's corner threw in the towel. Pacquiao had knocked Barrera down in the 3rd and 11th rounds before the stoppage. The upset win propelled Pacquiao to stardom and Barrera has sought a rematch ever since.
Barrera finds fighting in Mandalay Bay as a curse because it is in the place where he suffered setbacks in the two of his most significant fights. The first loss was inflected by Erik Morales via split decision in their WBC and WBO super bantamweight championship on February 19, 2000. In his last bout last March 17, Barrera lost his WBC super featherweight crown to Juan Manuel Marquez by 12-round unanimous decision also at Mandalay Bay.
Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino is a 39-story hotel casino on the prominent Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. It is owned by MGM Mirage. The resort which opened on March 2, 1999 has 3,309 hotel rooms and a casino with a floor area of 13,000 m?. The Mandalay Bay Events Center hosts events including boxing, the Ultimate Fighting Championship's Mixed Martial Arts pay-per-views and concerts. The resort takes its name from Rudyard Kipling's poem Mandalay.
Mandalay Bay sits at the south end of the Las Vegas Strip and it serves as an enchanting escape from the daily routine and boasts elegance and excitement in its restaurants and entertainment. It features the 4.5 hectare sun-drenched Mandalay Beach with two heated pools, a wave pool, topless pool and a lazy river that features a small waterfall. There are also two restaurants at the Beach. This resort is a bustling, tropical paradise, accented by fountains, sculpture, marble and flora. The pool area is considered among the best in Las Vegas, winning the 2006 Las Vegas Review Journal's Reader's "Best Pool of Las Vegas" award for the 7th year in a row.
Pacquiao and Barrera had made their grand entrances at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. Official weigh-in for the ?Will to Win? card is on Friday (Saturday in RP) starting 2:30 pm at the Mandalay Bay Events Center which will be open to the public.
Mandalay Bay hosts many of the most popular and big-time boxing matches and fights of the year. It?s an entertaining place to see a boxing fight and the Race and Sports Book has a lot of betting options to choose from.
Among the largest grossing boxing bouts at the Mandalay Bay is the Oscar De La Hoya vs. Fernando Vargas fight for the WBC Super Welterweight and WBA Light Middleweight Titles on September 14, 2002, Felix Trinidad vs. Fernando Vargas tussle for the WBA and IBF Light-Middleweight Titles on December 2, 2000, and the Felix Trinidad vs. Oscar De La Hoya scuffle for the WBC and IBF Welterweight Titles on September18, 1999.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.
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