Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao’s planned Sphere Las Vegas rematch appears to be off, as the immersive arena announced new dates for the Eagles’ residency, which include the planned fight date on Sept. 19.
On Monday, Sphere announced six new dates for the Eagles successful stay at the $2.2 billion venue, with the Sept. fight date among those. This would indicate that Mayweather-Pacquiao is off, or could be moving to a different venue or date.
Boxing Scene reported last week that the bout would move from the Sphere, potentially to the MGM Grand Garden Arena or T-Mobile Arena and that the date could shift to sometime in August.
The years in the making rematch was announced in February as a sanctioned professional bout that would air live on Netflix. On Tuesday, a Sphere spokesperson deferred questions on the status of the fight to Netflix. Requests for comments on the fight’s status to Netflix and BZA public relations firm, who was helping promote the fight, were not returned.
In March, Mayweather told the Review-Journal that the Pacquiao (62-8-3, 27 knockouts) bout was not going to be a sanctioned fight, but rather an exhibition and that the Sphere was not the confirmed site, despite the announcement by Netflix and Sphere stating as such.
In April, Manny Pacquiao Promotions CEO Jas Mathur said in response to those claims that Mayweather (50-0, 27 KOs) signed multiple contracts for the bout and that those were for a sanctioned fight at Sphere on Sept. 19. Mathur also said that Mayweather faced a significant penalty should he pull out of the planned fight and that Mayweather received deposits for each of the contracts he signed and that he also took a loan out against his planned fight purse.
Pacquiao (62-8-3, 39 KOs) said he wouldn’t fight Mayweather if it wasn’t a sanctioned bout.
Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.
