Jose Luis Castillo says Floyd Mayweather still has enough left to beat Manny Pacquiao again, even as fresh reports say the long-dormant rivalry has been revived for a new date in Las Vegas. The former lightweight world champion, who fought Mayweather twice in 2002, said both men are “old men” now but still backed “Money” to have the edge.

Mike Coppinger reported that Mayweather and Pacquiao reached a new deal to meet at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on September 25, with the rematch set to stream live on Netflix. Earlier this year, the pair had been set to collide at The Sphere in Las Vegas on September 19, but the new timeline pushes the event to a different venue and a later date.

Castillo is not speaking as a distant observer. He shared the ring with Mayweather on two occasions in 2002 and lost both fights by unanimous decision, but he has long argued that he should have gotten the decision when they first met in April 2002. Even so, his view of this matchup is blunt: he said Mayweather “should still have the edge over his rival.”

The rematch, if it goes ahead, would drag back into the spotlight one of boxing’s most famous and most profitable events. Mayweather beat Pacquiao by unanimous decision in their first fight in 2015, a bout that headlined the most lucrative boxing event of all time. It also came during a stretch in which Mayweather was barely active: his only professional outings since then were against Andre Berto and Conor McGregor, whom he stopped with a 10th-round finish in 2017.

Pacquiao, by contrast, has stayed busier. He has entered eight fully-sanctioned bouts over the past decade, and his most recent one ended in a controversial draw against Mario Barrios last July. That contrast matters because this latest version of Mayweather-Pacquiao is not just a nostalgia act. It is a meeting between two aging stars with very different recent paths, and it asks the same question that has hovered over both men for years: whether the old hierarchy still holds.

For Castillo, the answer remains yes. He said plainly that he beat Mayweather, but he also made clear that Mayweather, even now, may be better equipped to handle Pacquiao if the matchup reaches the ring on September 25. After nearly a decade of false starts, shifting dates and recycled talk, the fight finally has a fresh calendar. What remains to be seen is whether this version survives long enough for the opening bell.