As a holder of 10 world titles in a record eight weight divisions and four of them as lineal champion, Manny Pacquiao has faced as many great fighters in one career as anyone could and has now been named the hardest hitter of them all saying ‘he hurt me several times.’
The Pacquiao story is remarkable – from the streets of his native Philippines via minimum weight bouts early on and becoming the first ever WBC flyweight holder aged just 19, he eventually went on to conquer the entire sport and be involved in some of its biggest-ever fights, most notably with long time rival Floyd Mayweather in 2015.
In the meantime he turned out super performances against the likes of heralded Mexican trio Marco Antonio Barrera whom he beat twice, Erik Morales who he fought three times and came out of it the 2-1 victor, and Juan Manuel Marquez whom he lost to once, drew with once, and beat twice.
He also fought plenty other of boxing’s biggest names including David Diaz, De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito, Shane Mosley, Brandon Rios and Tim Bradley, with impressive wins late on in his career against young pretenders like Keith Thurman.
When asked to cast his mind back over the hardest hitters he ever faced by Ring TV, he came out with one name above all and that was Antonio Margarito who he beat in 2010 in a WBC super welterweight title fight billed as “The Eighth Wonder of the World”.
“Big and strong is an understatement. His body shots hurt me several times throughout our fight.”
In an interview detailed by Marca, Pacquiao said he was ‘surprised’ to have survived the fight.
“His punch is different. It was surprising that I survived that fight. I could take the punches, I could take the blows, but after the fight I could feel something, it was too much for me.”