Here we go again with trainer Freddie Roach hyping up Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao to mythical proportions.
In a recent article by Aaron Stokes of The Daily Star UK, Roach claimed that his fighter Manny Pacquiao who weighs 148-pounds soaking wet hit him harder than the legendary heavyweight knockout artist “Iron” Mike Tyson.
I know Roach trained Mike Tyson toward the end of his career, but even that past his prime Tyson who weighed around 225 pounds in shape was still a destructive force. He just didn’t have the will or hunger to fight anymore.
If Pacquiao hit harder than Tyson then he would be knocking out every single one of his opponents or at least dropping them multiple times.
When Tyson hit an opponent flush they went to sleep or were badly hurt, when Pacquiao hits you flush he might get a flash knockdown like he did with Keith Thurman, but they usually don’t get too badly hurt and recover.
This is why you can’t really take what Roach says seriously because he will hype up his fighters to no end even to the point of exaggeration.
I do recall Roach telling a reporter who asked why Manny Pacquiao hasn’t been knocking anyone out in a while, and he told one reporter it was because Manny didn’t want to hurt his opponent since he became a born again Christian, in another interview he said because Pacquiao is not really a 147 pounder.
If Roach truly believed what he said then he would have no issue or worry with Pacquiao fighting someone like Canelo at middleweight because after all he apparently hits harder than Mike Tyson.
I don’t believe it, and most people who know boxing don’t believe it.
Pacquiao might have some snap to his punches, but the evidence suggests he doesn’t hit as hard as Roach claims he does.
He hasn’t knocked someone out cold since Ricky Hatton which was a decade ago. He has hit opponents with power shots and still couldn’t hurt them for example the Jeff Horn fight, he threw everything but the kitchen sink at Horn in round 9 and still couldn’t put him to sleep.
These type of outlandish claims are why people take what Roach says with a grain of salt. Roach has also predicted before almost every Pacquiao fight that he would KO his opponent, yet it has never happened.
I’ll give Roach credit he is a great salesman, the type who would try to sell snow to an Eskimo. If you want a hype man get with Roach, he might even tell the world you can beat Deontay Wilder by KO.
