The undercard for pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao's third fight against Juan Manuel Marquez on Nov. 12 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas is coming together with two of the bouts on the HBO PPV telecast being set, Top Rank's Bob Arum told ESPN.com on Thursday.
One of the bouts will have junior welterweight contender Mike Alvarado (31-0, 22 KOs) of Denver facing Colombia's Breidis Prescott (24-3, 19 KOs).
"That's a pretty good fight isn't it? I think so. It's a good test for Alvarado and a good fight," Arum said.
Alvarado will be facing the most notable opponent of his career in Prescott who is best known for his first-round knockout in 2008 against then-lightweight Amir Khan, who went on to win a pair of junior welterweight titles.
Prescott took him out in 54 seconds. But Prescott is coming off a closely contested decision loss to Paul McCloskey in McCloskey's native Northern Ireland on Sept. 10 -- a result that could have gone either way.
"Top Rank made the offer and we've accepted it. I'm waiting for the contract," Leon Margules, Prescott's promoter, told ESPN.com. "Breidis comes back from Colombia on Monday to start training in Miami. We like the fight. Alvarado comes to you, Prescott comes to you, so style-wise it's a good fight, and both guys can bang. We like our chances. The only guys Breidis has had problems with are guys who have moved on him."
In a fight that will open the PPV broadcast, Arum said that Puerto Rican junior lightweight Luis Cruz (19-0, 15 KOs), who recently signed with Top Rank as his co-promoter, will face Juan Carlos Burgos (27-1, 19 KOs), a former featherweight title challenger who is moving up in weight.
Cruz is coming off a dominant sixth-round knockout of Antonio Diaz on the Sept. 10 Yuriorkis Gamboa-Daniel Ponce De Leon undercard in Atlantic City, N.J.
Burgos has won two fights in a row since his losing a competitive decision to Hozumi Hasegawa for a vacant featherweight belt last November in Japan.
Top Rank will add one more televised bout.
In the main event, Pacquiao defends his welterweight belt against Marquez, the lightweight champion who is moving up in weight. In two memorable and controversial battles, they have fought to a draw in a 2004 featherweight championship fight and Pacquiao won a split decision in a 2008 junior lightweight title fight.
Source: espn
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