He's a movie star that owns his own basketball team, his own pool tournament, more belts than a celebutant and the ability to blindside his opponent either with a pair of sledgehammer fists or his shaggy, shy charm.

So, when searching for problems in the life of the the baddest 130-pound man on the planet, you won't exactly find the run-of-the-mill problems of, say, an over-aggressive paper boy.

This is what constitutes problems in the world of Manny Pacquiao:

"It's the, what are they called," Pacquiao asks, his perfect English breaking for a phonetic rendition of the newest word in his vocabulary, "the pa-pa-rat-zee."

A featherweight boxer worrying about paparazzi in the United States is a little like a high school gym teacher turning down autograph requests. But little about Pacquiao -- and nothing about Saturday night's long-awaited rematch with Juan Manuel Marquez for Marquez' 130-pound belt (HBO Pay-Per-View, 9PM ET) -- is normal.

"The only thing I can promise in this fight is that it will be very entertaining," Pacquiao says when asked what, other than Marquez' WBC hardware, is at stake. "The rest? Who knows?"

In their first fight, the champion Marquez controlled the action for the first 90 seconds until a Pacquiao left dropped him like an oversized sack of laundry. Then came the second knock down. And, like a slow-speed accident he just couldn't avoid, came the third.

By the end of the first round, Pacquiao had broken Marquez' nose. But he hadn't broken his will.

After absorbing a series of chin-rattling shots from one of boxing's top power puncher, the Mexican fighter climbed off the canvas to win nearly all of the late rounds, turning an early rout into a disputed draw. As champion, Marquez kept his belt, and after pulling off one of the most impressive feats of stamina in recent boxing history, should've jumped straight from titlist to legend.

But that's precisely when Marquez' set of problems became radically different than Pacquiao's. The Filipino would go on to fight a legendary trilogy with Erik Morales, beat Oscar Larios and humble Marco Antonio Barrera and eventually find himself going click for click with the paparazzi.

Marquez, meanwhile, found himself wondering exactly which part of Indonesia he would be fighting in, wondering where exactly a career that led him from the toughest barrios of Mexico City to the featherweight championship was going.

Unable to come to a financial agreement with Pacquiao for a rematch in 2004, Marquez began a boxing odyssey through places that neither Rand nor McNally could find on a map but where Marquez could find a paycheck. Three fights after his bout with Pacquiao, Marquez lost his belts in East Kalimantan Indonsesia to Chris John, fighting for just $30,000, nearly three-quarters of a million less than the offer tabled by Pacquiao's camp.

Even in his return to the United States, the addresses didn't get any more glamorous. First, he fought in Stateline, Nevada, a town with the population the size of a high school and only geographically in the same area as Las Vegas. Then it was Hidalgo, Texas, a less-than-bustling town of 7,300.

"It was a tough time," Marquez says. "But it just made me stronger, more determined."

His skills remained unquestioned and his name was like a password to the boxing cognoscenti. Dedicated fans of the sport knew who he was and appreciated his skill, but while Pacquiao, Barrera and Morales became the ruling triumvirate at 126 and 130 pounds, Marquez was as anonymous to the mainstream public as a one-hit reality star.

"Some of it he brought on himself," boxing historian Bert Sugar said before Marquez' return fight against Barrera last year. "We had to wonder if we'd ever see Marquez again."

Meanwhile, where Pacquiao's failure to put Marquez away should've battered his reputation, the Filipino's star only grew.

In the ring, Pacquiao is what would happen if Tommy guns came equipped with boxing gloves. Fast and explosive, the Filipino punches well above his weight class.

Out of the ring in his native Philippines, Pacquiao is less a sporting hero and more, as he's been labeled by his nation's politicians, a "national treasure." Think George Washington in boxing gloves, if only Washington had slugged 714 homers and headlined in Vegas in his down time.

Pacquiao, it seems, has even developed crime-fighting superpowers. According to the Manila Bulletin, police expect crime to go down during Pacquiao's fight because even the criminals hang on his every punch.

Asked to come up with a parallel celebrity in the United States, Pacquiao politely balked, due in part to his unfailingly self-effacing nature, but, more specifically because even he realizes there is no option.

After all, when was the last time Tom Brady caused criminals to take a break from crime? At least, without a photo-op from Gisele?

"I consider myself very fortunate to be able to give back to my country," says Pacquiao. "I'm not a soldier, not a general, not a big corporation that brings in money, but this is my own little way of giving back to the Filipino people, giving them one day of unity."

With his TV-friendly fighting style and mop-top charm like something out of the early Beatles' catalogue, Pacquiao has gone where few featherweights have gone before him, conquering the United States.

As Juan Manuel Marquez watched from the wings as Pacquiao took Marquez' place on boxing's main stage, he never begrudged Pacman his success.

"The conditions were right for him," Marquez says, "I didn't worry about the press coming around or what they were saying. I knew I could always get back"

Indeed, fame came late for Juan Manuel Marquez. But after a win last year over reigning 130-pound champion Marco Antonio Barrera, Marquez, like a house guest that doesn't believe any welcome can be worn out, is ready to kick his shoes off, hop on the couch and enjoy life in boxing's penthouse for as long as it'll have the 34-year-old fighter.

Pass the man the pretzels.

"I've been to extremes," Marquez says. "But I always put in the effort. They took my belts away, they did what they could to me, but I never gave up. This is my job, so I just waited for that right moment. Now the moment is here and it's so much sweeter because of the work I had to do for it.

Like no other marquee fighter, Marquez owes his career turnaround to his promoters. Shortly after his low-attention fight in Hidalgo, Marquez signed on with Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy promotions. His first fight, against the always high-profile and always bankable Barrera, put Marquez back in the spotlight. Two fights later, Golden Boy has placed Marquez at exactly the peak from which he fell four years ago.

"Golden Boy is extremely pleased to be working with Juan Manuel and his team," says Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaeffer. "He is an unbelievable champion."

But as much as Marquez has to gain with a win Saturday night, he, and Pacquiao, have as much to lose. At 34, which, for fighters at 130 pounds is nearly the age for shuffle board and rocking chairs, Marquez may be down to his final chance to prove he belongs among the elite of his generation rather than just a can't miss talent that by and large did.

Pacquiao, who followed up Fighter of the Year honors in 2006 with a lackluster 2007 (though he did comfortably beat both Barrera and Jorge Solis), needs to prove that his focus, and best days, are here and now.

Boxing wisdom and betting lines favor the power-punching and younger Pacquiao, but, if this rivalry has taught us anything, it's that nothing is assured between and beyond the ropes with these two.

"I can only guarantee," Pacquiao cryptically admits again, "that this will be an exciting fight."

Even the winner isn't guaranteed to come out ahead.