Feb 18 (Reuters) – Manny Pacquiao \u2060confirmed he will face former junior welterweight world \u2060champion Ruslan Provodnikov in Las Vegas on April 18, \u200cmarking his second outing since returning from a four\u2011year retirement last year.<\/p>\n
The 47-year-old last fought in July, when he ended a long hiatus \u200bwith a majority draw against WBC \u2060welterweight champion Mario Barrios.<\/p>\n
\u201cI carry \u2060the Philippines with me every time I fight. The support \u2060from \u200cmy country and from fans around the world continues to inspire me,\u201d Pacquiao said in a \u2060statement issued by Indistry Media and Banner Promotions \u200bon Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cReturning \u200cto Las Vegas means so much to me, and \u2060I\u2019m excited \u200bto work with a team focused on creating a world-class experience for the fans. I\u2019m coming back to give them a \u2060great fight \u2013 and I\u2019m ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pacquiao initially \u200bretired in 2021 before resuming his career last year. Away from the ring, he served in the Philippine Senate from \u20602016 to 2022 and mounted an unsuccessful presidential bid in 2022.<\/p>\n
The eight-division world champion \u2014 the first boxer to achieve that feat \u2014 also became the oldest welterweight world champion at \u200bage 40 in 2019. His professional record \u2060stands at 62 wins, eight losses and three draws from \u200b73 fights.<\/p>\n
He was elected to the \u200cInternational Boxing Hall of Fame \u200bas part of the Class of 2025.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Karan Prashant Saxena in Bengaluru; Editing by Kevin Buckland)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb 18 (Reuters) – Manny Pacquiao \u2060confirmed he will face former junior welterweight world \u2060champion Ruslan Provodnikov in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,6675,85],"class_list":["post-487414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-na","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}