Official Announcement : Manny Pacquiao vs Timothy Bradley

Saturday, June 9 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas Presented Live By HBO Pay-Per-View® Tickets Go On Sale This Friday! February 24 at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT

Photo: Chris Farina/Top Rank

LAS VEGAS, NEV. (February 21, 2012) – Eight-division world champion MANNY “Pacman” PACQUIAO and undefeated two-time unified junior welterweight champion TIMOTHY “Desert Storm” BRADLEY, JR. will go mano a mano in a battle of Top-10 pound-for-pound world champions. The Pacquiao vs. Bradley World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight championship collision will take place Saturday, June 9, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nev. The event will be produced and distributed live by HBO Pay-Per-View beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT.

Promoted by Top Rank, in association with MP Promotions, Tecate, AT&T and MGM Grand, tickets to Pacquiao vs. Bradley go on sale This Friday! February 24 at 1:00 p.m. ET / 10:00 a.m. PT, and are priced at $1,200, $900, $600, $400, and $200. Ticket sales at $1,200, $900, $600 and $400 are limited to 10 per person and ticket sales at $200 are limited to two (2) per person. To charge by phone with a major credit card, call Ticketmaster (800) 745-3000. Tickets also will be available for purchase at www.mgmgrand.com or www.ticketmaster.com.

“Timothy Bradley is the king of the junior welterweight division in search of new worlds to conquer. I know how he feels,” said Pacquiao. “I admire his ambition and his self confidence to risk his undefeated record by moving up in weight to challenge me. Freddie Roach and I will need to make the most of every training day to prepare for Timothy. When I walk into the ring on June 9, it will be more than a world title defense for me. It will be another opportunity to bring honor and glory to my country and to my fellow Filipinos in the Philippines and around the world.”

“I’ve never met a mountain I couldn’t climb and I’ve never let a man’s height or stature intimidate me,” said Bradley. “I live to fight the best. I’m not only challenging Manny for his world title but I’m also challenging myself. I am grateful for this wonderful opportunity and I will make the most of it. I will enter the ring on June 9 fearless and prepared.”

“Pacquiao vs. Bradley will be a fight fans fight,” said Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum. “Both will come to fight. I am sure the action will be nonstop.”

“Manny Pacquiao is a worldwide superstar and we are delighted to be the television home for his next pay-per-view event on June 9 in Las Vegas,” said Mark Taffet, senior vice president, HBO Pay-Pay-View. “His events extend far beyond the traditional boxing ring. Timothy Bradley has earned his way into this fight by beating every opponent placed in front of him and we know he’ll excited and be ready for a special night of boxing at the MGM Grand.”

Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 KOs), the lone congressional representative from the Sarangani province in the Philippines, returns to the Fight Capital of the World to defend his World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight championship crown, his seventh of a record eight world titles in as many weight divisions. He has successfully defended his welterweight title three times, via dominant unanimous decisions over former International Boxing Federation (IBF) welterweight champion Joshua Clottey and former three-division world champion Sugar Shane Mosley, and a razor-close split decision to professional rival Juan Mánuel Márquez last November. Pacquiao captured the WBO welterweight title November 14, 2009, with a brilliant 12th round TKO victory over four-time world champion Miguel Cotto. Between welterweight title defenses Pacquiao captured the vacant World Boxing Council (WBC) super welterweight title with a brutal pasting of three-time welterweight champion Antonio Margarito. A three-time Fighter of the Year and the Boxing Writers Association of America’s “Fighter of the Decade,” Pacquiao’s resume features victories over future Hall of Famers, including Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales, Márquez, Cotto and Mosley. His knockout victories over Cotto and Hatton in 2009 and his victories over Clottey and Margarito in 2010 and Mosley and Márquez in 2011 combined for more than 6 million pay-per-view buys making Pacquiao the reigning pay-per-view king. No boxer sold more live tickets in the U.S. than Pacquiao in 2010 and 2011, making him the pound-for-pound king in the ring and at the box office.

Bradley (28-0, 12 KOs), from Palm Springs, Calif., won his first world title in 2008, travelling across the pond to dethrone the defending WBC super lightweight champion Junior Witter in the Englishman’s backyard of Nottingham, England. Bradley’s sixth-round knockdown of Witter shocked the hometown crowd as Bradley won a hard-fought split decision. One year later, in his second championship defense, Bradley unified the title by dominating then-WBO champion Kendall Holt. In a career-defining fight, Bradley weathered a first-round knockdown, and showed his trademark heart and determination during the remainder of the match, to win by unanimous decision. Bradley opted to keep the WBO junior welterweight title. Bradley successfully defended that title twice. In August 2009 he dominated former world champion Nate Campbell before an accidental clash of heads near the end of round three led to the fight later being ruled no contest when Campbell could not continue due to a nasty gash over his left eye. Bradley followed that up with a December 2009 schooling of undefeated interim WBO champion Lamont Peterson, which included a third-round knockdown, the first time Peterson had ever hit the canvas in his 27-bout professional career. With no worthy contenders available to defend his title against, Bradley moved up to 147 pounds and won a 12-round unanimous decision over undefeated Top-10 welterweight contender Carlos Abregu on July 17, 2010. Bradley kicked off 2011 by reunifying the welterweight titles with a 10-round shellacking of undefeated WBC super light champion Devon Alexander in January, followed by an eighth-round knockout victory of former world champion Joel Casamayor last November in the co-main event under Pacquiao-Márquez III at MGM Grand.

The Pacquiao vs. Bradley world championship telecast, which begins at 9:00 p.m. ET / 6:00 p.m. PT, will be produced and distributed live by HBO Pay-Per-View and will be available to more than 92 million pay-per-view homes. The telecast will be available in HD-TV for those viewers who can receive HD. HBO Pay-Per-View, a division of Home Box Office, Inc., is the leading supplier of event programming to the pay-per-view industry.

For Pacquiao-Bradley fight week updates, log on to www.toprank.com and www.hbo.com.