LOS ANGELES (AP) — Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have agreed to a rematch of their landmark 2015 bout.
Their second fight will be held Sept. 19 in Las Vegas, the boxing icons announced Monday. The rematch, which will be streamed on Netflix, will be the first boxing event to be held at Sphere, the immersive event venue east of the Strip.
Mayweather, who turns 49 years old on Tuesday, announced his intention last week to end his nine-year retirement from competitive boxing. The 47-year-old Pacquiao ended his own four-year retirement last year, and he is scheduled to meet Ruslan Provodnikov on April 18 in the second bout of his comeback.
Mayweather and Pacquiao didn’t announce a weight class or length for their second bout.
The two most prominent boxers of their generation will meet again 11 years after Mayweather beat Pacquiao by decision in a fight that didn't live up to the decade of hype preceding it. The bout's promoters claimed it was still the most profitable fight in history, setting pay-per-view records and attracting worldwide attention.
“I already fought and beat Manny once,” Mayweather said in a statement. "This time will be the same result.”
Pacquiao later revealed he fought with a shoulder injury because he didn't want to postpone such an important event. He was unable to apply his usual offensive pressure to Mayweather, who employed his usual defense-first strategy while easing to victory.
“The fans have waited long enough — they deserve this rematch,” Pacquiao said. “I want Floyd to live with the one loss on his professional record and always remember who gave it to him.”
The fighters' first meeting happened more than a half-decade after fans first began to clamor for an obvious matchup between two similarly-sized greats. Both sides blamed the other for the delay at times, but Mayweather always asserted he would fight whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted — leading many fans to believe Mayweather waited to accept the bout until he felt age had taken a bit of sting out of Pacquiao's famously vicious punches.
Both fighters are now much more than a decade removed from their primes, but Mayweather and Pacquiao remain two of the biggest names in boxing.
After Mayweather beat Conor McGregor in 2017 and retired with a 50-0 record, he spent much of his 40s competing in lucrative boxing “exhibitions” against YouTubers and fringe competitors while largely maintaining his lavish lifestyle outside the ring. He is currently in legal disputes with multiple alleged creditors over issues ranging from unpaid rent on a Manhattan apartment to outstanding jewelry bills.
Mayweather has announced another exhibition against 59-year-old Mike Tyson this spring, although the bout still doesn't have a location or date.
Pacquiao ran unsuccessfully for the presidency of his native Philippines and then lost in the Philippine Senate election last May. He returned to the ring two months after that political setback, fighting WBC welterweight champion Mario Barrios to a majority draw while trying to become the oldest 147-pound champion.
The rematch is the latest bout to land on Netflix as the platform continues to scoop up top fights for its live sports programming. The streamer showcased Terence Crawford's victory over Canelo Álvarez last year, and it will present heavyweight champ Tyson Fury's comeback bout in April.
The Sphere venue, which opened in 2023, hosted a UFC show in 2024. UFC President Dana White said the promotion had to pay roughly $20 million to produce that show — about 10 times more than a normal UFC pay-per-view event — because of the venue's unusual capabilities and requirements.
AP boxing: https://apnews.com/boxing
FILE - Manny Pacquiao poses on the scale during a ceremonial weigh in July 18, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
FILE - Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. looks on during the first half of an NBA basketball game between the LA Clippers and the New York Knicks, March 26, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger, File)
FILE - Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, hits Manny Pacquiao, from the Philippines, during their welterweight title fight on May 2, 2015, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken, File)
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Prosecutors portrayed a Utah mother and children’s book author as a money-hungry killer Monday on the first day of a murder trial in her husband’s death, while her defense team urged jurors not to make judgments before hearing her side.
Kouri Richins, 35, faces a slew of felony charges for allegedly killing her husband, Eric Richins, with fentanyl in March 2022 at their home just outside the ski town of Park City. She has vehemently denied the allegations.
Prosecutors say she slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that he drank. She is also accused of trying to poison him a month earlier on Valentine's Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him break out in hives and black out, according to court documents.
After her husband's death, Kouri Richins self-published a children’s book about grief to help her sons and other kids cope with the loss of a parent.
As arguments in the case got underway Monday, Richins sat next to her attorneys, taking notes and passing some to them. It wasn't known whether she would take the stand in her defense.
Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth told jurors that Richins was $4.5 million in debt and falsely believed that if her husband died she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million. Prosecutors have argued she was planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side.
“The evidence will prove that Kouri Richins murdered Eric for his money and to get a fresh start at life,” Bloodworth said. “More than anything, she wanted his money to perpetuate her facade of privilege, affluence and success."
Defense attorney Kathryn Nester started her opening statement by playing the recording of Richins’ 911 call from the night of her husband’s death. Richins was sobbing on the call and seemed barely able to answer the dispatcher’s questions.
“Those were the sounds of a wife becoming a widow,” Nester said. Video
Eric Richins had Lyme disease and was addicted to painkillers, Nester argued. She suggested he may have overdosed.
However, Eric Richins’ sister Katie Richins-Benson testified that their mother was a drug and alcohol counselor who had instilled in the siblings from an early age the dangers of drug use.
The trial is slated to run through March 26. A few dozen people hoping to watch camped outside the courthouse in lawn chairs starting at 4 a.m., four and a half hours before the trial began.
Richins faces nearly three dozen counts, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud and insurance fraud. The murder charge alone carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
In the months before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published the illustrated children’s book “Are You with Me?” about a father with angel wings watching over his young son after passing away. The book could play a key role for prosecutors in framing Eric Richins’ death as a calculated killing with an elaborate cover-up attempt. Bloodworth told jurors Monday about how Richins promoted it on local TV and radio stations.
Years before her husband's death, Richins opened numerous life insurance policies on Eric Richins without his knowledge, with benefits totaling nearly $2 million, prosecutors alleged. Court documents also indicate she had a negative bank account balance and was being sued by a creditor.
Bloodworth showed the jury a series of text messages between Kouri Richins and Robert Josh Grossman, the man with whom she was having an affair. She had texted Grossman about her dream of leaving her husband, gaining millions in the divorce and one day marrying Grossman.
Bloodworth also showed screenshots of Richins’ internet search history, which included “luxury prisons for the rich America” and “Can cops force you to do a lie detector test?”
Body camera video shown in court from Summit County Sheriff’s Deputy Vincent Nguyen showed Richins distraught as she told police that her husband had chest pain before he went to sleep and may have taken a THC gummy. She said her husband had no history of illicit drug use.
“My husband’s active. He didn’t just die in his sleep. This is insane,” she said in the video.
Richins appeared to be in pajamas as paramedics worked to resuscitate her husband in a nearby room, the video showed. She held her head in her hands at times and paced around while talking to a deputy and family members who later arrived, the video showed.
Eric Richins’ sister testified that she rushed to his house after hearing from another family member that he wasn’t breathing. Richins-Benson said she ran inside and locked eyes with Richins, who shook her head.
“That’s when I knew my brother was gone,” the sister said.
“I observed that she was not how she normally was,” Richins-Benson said of the defendant. “She was very well put together. She had a matching pajama-esque outfit on. Her hair was all done up.”
Among the key witnesses expected to be called later in the trial is the family’s housekeeper Carmen Lauber, who claims to have sold fentanyl to Kouri Richins on multiple occasions.
Lauber is not charged in connection with the case, and detectives have said she was granted immunity.
Defense attorneys argued Monday that Lauber did not give Richins fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection. No fentanyl was found in Richins’ house, and the housekeeper’s dealer has said he was in jail and detoxing from drug use when he told detectives in 2023 that he sold fentanyl to Lauber. He later said in a sworn affidavit that he sold her only the opioid OxyContin.
Nester showed jurors photos of an empty pill bottle sitting on Eric Richins' bedside table the night of his death and bags of gummies he was known to use regularly. She said he had asked his wife to procure opioids for him.
Internet searches recovered from the phone of Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, are displayed on a screen during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Kathy Nester, the defense attorney for Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, shows the jury an image of a pill bottle while delivering her opening statement in Richins' murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Brad Bloodworth, chief prosecutor for Summit County, motions toward Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, while delivering his opening statement in Richins' trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Judge Richard Mrazik, right, talks to Brad Bloodworth, chief prosecutor for Summit County, during the trial of Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, looks on during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, talks to her attorneys during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
FILE - Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who wrote a children's book about coping with grief after her husband's death and was later accused of fatally poisoning him, looks on during a court hearing on Aug. 27, 2024, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, File)
FILE - Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who wrote a children's book about coping with grief after her husband's death and was later accused of fatally poisoning him, looks on during a hearing on Aug. 26, 2024, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, File)
