Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao and Mexican star Juan Manuel Marquez will fight each other for a fifth time if both men win their next fight, promoters said on Friday.
Top Rank announced that the winner of a May 17 bout between Marquez and Mike Alvarado would be the mandatory title challenger for the winner of next month's World Boxing Organisation welterweight title bout between Pacquiao and undefeated American Timothy Bradley.
That could set the stage for 35-year-old southpaw Pacquiao, 55-5 with two drawn and 38 knockouts, to meet 40-year-old Marquez, 55-7 with one drawn and 40 knockouts, yet again in a rivalry that dates to 2004.
Pacquiao fought a controversial featherweight draw with Marquez in 2004, beat the Mexican in a 2008 split decision for the World Boxing Council super featherweight crown and defended the WBO welterweight title with a 2011 majority decision.
But Marquez took a measure of revenge in 2012, knocking out the Asian star in the sixth round.
For a chance to even the score in the rivalry with Pacquiao, Marquez would have to dispatch American Mike Alvarado, 34-2 with 23 knockouts, and "Pac-Man" would have to defeat US unbeaten Bradley, 31-0 with 12 knockouts.
Bradley won a controversial split decision over Pacquiao in 2012 to take the WBO welterweight crown and defended it last October with a split-decision victory over Marquez.
Alvarado is coming off a loss to Russian Ruslan Provodnikov last October that cost him the WBO light welterweight title.
"Marquez has always been on our radar and he is the one we always wanted to fight," Alvarado trainer Henry Delgado said in a Twitter posting. "What a fight with such a reward - to fight the winner of Pacquiao vs Bradley."
