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The Honolulu Advertiser
Updated at 3:06 p.m., Thursday, March 13, 2008

Boxing: Arum says Pacquiao's next fight in Las Vegas

By GREG BEACHAM
AP Sports Writer

LAS VEGAS — Before his long-anticipated trip to Macau, Manny Pacquiao will stick around Sin City a bit longer.

After Pacquiao fights Juan Manuel Marquez on Saturday night in their super featherweight rematch, the Filipino champion will return to Las Vegas and the Mandalay Bay Events Center in late June for his next 135-pound fight against WBC lightweight champion David Diaz, promoter Bob Arum told The Associated Press on Thursday.

If Pacquiao (45-3-2, 34 KOs) stays on his winning roll, he will fight in Macau in the fall — perhaps against new unified lightweight champion Nate Campbell, who holds the other three belts in a star-studded division after stunning Juan Diaz last week in Cancun.

Pacquiao had long been expected to fight David Diaz in June in the opulent 15,000-seat arena at the new Venetian casino in Macau, the Chinese territory that surpassed the Las Vegas Strip's total gambling revenue in 2006.

Filipino fans who revere Pacquiao as a national hero are expected to pour into nearby Macau for the fight, just his second in Asia since December 2004. But Pacquiao's fans are exactly the reason Arum plans to make Pacquiao's next fight at Mandalay Bay — specifically the 2 million Filipinos living in California who liven up the Las Vegas scene on weekends when Pacquiao is in town.

"The business that Manny brings in is right up their alley," Arum said. "It's what they want here, and (Mandalay Bay) really wanted to have the fight here at the end of June."

Pacquiao has won six straight fights heading into his meeting with Marquez, who battled him to a draw four years ago. David Diaz (33-1-1, 17 KOs), long expected to be Pacquiao's next opponent, is fighting Ramon Montano on the undercard of Saturday's fight in a non-title bout.

Pacquiao's trip to Macau would be a huge break for Campbell, the 36-year-old late-bloomer who won his first title by battering Juan Diaz at Plaza de Toros in Cancun. Throwing more punches than the famously productive Diaz, Campbell won a split decision to claim the WBA, IBF and WBO lightweight belts.