At least that’s what Rashad Holloway, former sparring partner of Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito, had to say. Holloway, who, like Margarito, is naturally bigger than Pacquiao, has fought the majority of his career as a jr. middleweight. He’s sparred with some of the best fighters in and around the division, including Shane Mosley and Antonio Margarito. I was able to interview Holloway last November when he served as one of Pacquiao’s chief sparring partners during his preparation for the De la Hoya fight. In that interview, Holloway told me this about Pacquiao:
“Manny’s a special fighter. He’s fast with his feet, fast with his hands; very strong, very explosive and he has a lot of pop in his punches. At first, I thought his punches weren’t going to hurt. That’s why I was just messing around a little bit in the beginning, but when Manny caught me a few good ones, I told myself, ‘Okay, I can’t get hit with that again.'”
Pacquiao is hailed as one of the sport’s hardest punchers, a distinction uncommon for a boxer who started his career at 106 lbs. He’s won titles in at least four different weight divisions, perhaps five depending on who you want to believe, and most recently reigned as the WBC’s lightweight champion until relinquishing the title to pursue bigger challenges in higher weight classes.
Recently, when fellow boxing writer Ryan Songalia interviewed Holloway, he went on to describe Pacquiao’s punches as being more devastating than those of former welterweight champion Antonio Margarito. “Manny’s power hurts more. Manny’s not the most technically sound fighter, but he’s moreso than Margarito. When you have a snapping punch coming at you, a punch that you don’t see with some speed on it, that’s an explosive kind of power that hurts you. That’s the kind of power that startles you and can put you down,” Holloway revealed. It should be noted that those comments were made before the hand wrap controversy that Margarito was involved in.
If you talk to some of Pacquiao’s conquered adversaries, however, they might tell you a different story. In his first interview after his loss to Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya was quoted in the L.A. Times saying, “I felt as if he could just land anything and I couldn’t do anything about it. I just didn’t care. I didn’t care if he was hitting me because I couldn’t do anything about it. Luckily he doesn’t hit hard. Obviously, if he would’ve hit hard, he would have knocked me out with no problem.” Leave it to De la Hoya to find positivity even in the worst situation – make that the worst beating of his life. For that alone, I’d have to say that Oscar is definitely a full-blown promoter. If he feels lucky about the thrashing he received from a guy naturally smaller than him, then it’s definitely time for him to retire. To come out and say those things, well, to me he sounds like he’s truly not a fighter anymore. Now he’s simply a promoter. But I digress…
Similar tunes were sung by other boxers that Pacquiao has beaten, including Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, David Diaz and even Jorge Solis. Most of his foes credit his speed and downplay his actual punching power as the primary reason why Pacquiao bested them. Comments like that remind me of my old Karate lessons when I was a kid. It’s pretty much the same concept that Bruce Lee popularized: a punch traveling at the shortest distance and the most rapid speed will inflict the most damage. If that’s the case, I mean, how can you really say Pacquiao’s punches don’t hurt? If he doesn’t punch hard, then why have most of his opponents gone down? Are Pacquiao’s opponents in denial? Perhaps it is the speed and angles of his punches that catch his opponents off guard, stuns them and puts their butts on the mat. Maybe it’s just the accumulation of punches that overwhelms his foes. I can’t really provide the answers, but one thing should be clear…Manny Pacquiao’s punches do indeed hurt!
I’ve also heard many gym tales regarding Pacquiao and some of his old sparring partners, breaking their ribs and knocking them down even while wearing head and body protection. There was even a story that came from the Philippines that Pacquiao used to knock down carabaos (the Philippine’s water buffalo) with his punches. Okay, that’s probably hyperbole and gossip more than anything so let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, but the point is, the man can punch!
Sticking to facts, however, I have no reason not to believe Holloway’s statements as he’s taken shots from both men, including one from Margarito that actually fractured his orbital bone and put his career in jeopardy (I wonder if Margarito’s trainer, Javier Capetillo, made the same mistake he made prior to the Mosley fight and accidentally put the wrong inserts into his fighter’s hand wraps on that day). Maybe I’ll go down to the Wild Card Gym this summer and have Manny hit me with a straight left so I can judge for myself – okay, maybe not. One thing’s for sure though…Ricky Hatton will be facing one of the hardest punchers he has ever had to face inside the ring. If Floyd Mayweather Jr. was able to knock him out with one well-placed left hook, then Hatton will certainly have his hands full considering that Mayweather never really seriously hurt De la Hoya in the same manner that Pacquiao did.
On May 2, Hatton’s chin will be our proverbial barometer on gauging Pacquiao’s punching power. At 140, Ricky Hatton has never been knocked out. We’ll see how Pacquiao’s punches affect Ricky and should know if Holloway is indeed correct.
