Erik Morales Insists Manny Pacquiao, Marco Antonio Barrera Weren't His Toughest Opponents

Legendary Mexican boxer Erik Morales is insisting that Manny Pacquiao and Marco Antonio Barrera weren’t the toughest opponents he has faced.

Throughout his magnificent boxing career, Morales has shared the ring with some of the greatest fighters of all time. During his prime, he famously battled both Pacquiao and Barrera three times. This has led to pundits and fans believing that the two legendary boxers gave Morales the hardest time out of all his foes. However, “El Terrible” begged to disagree.

In a recent interview with RingTV.com titled “Best I Faced: Erik Morales,” the 43-year-old admitted that it was Pacquiao who had “the quickest hands” and “could deliver four or five quick, short punches in combination in the blink of an eye.” He also emphasized that the Filipino legend was a “very powerful man” inside the ring.

All seemed to be going well until it was time to reveal who was the toughest opponent he has ever faced. The report stated that Morales “was still clearly uncomfortable with the question” until he finally said with all seriousness that his toughest opponent was himself.

“If you’re talking about the toughest opponent I’ve faced, to be honest, his name was Erik Morales. When I did things the right way and had proper training, boxing was easy for me, but all too often I did not do that. So, as you know, I had a lot of struggles,” Morales explained.

Morales even tried to predict what people wanted to hear from him and finally mentioned Pacquiao and Barrera’s names. However, the Mexican legend had a thorough explanation as to why neither of the said fighters were the most difficult ones he has fought against.

“Honestly, I had too many tough fights to say one man was tougher than all the rest. I know fans want me to say that it was either Barrera or Pacquiao, but I don’t see it that way. That’s not how a fighter views things. There are fighters who people have forgotten about or never knew that were the toughest fights,” Morales pointed out.

Instead, Morales named an array of his past opponents from the '90s as the toughest fights of his career: Jose “Pepillo” Valdez, Enrique Jupiter, Daniel Zaragoza and Junior Jones.

Morales then once again insisted that his epic fights with Pacquiao and Barrera weren’t more special than his fights with Wayne McCullough, Guty Espadas, Chi, Jesus Chavez, Carlos Hernandez and David Diaz.

“I’ve had so many wars I forget some of them. You or anyone else can probably put together a Top 20 list of my toughest fights,” he concluded.