Manny Pacquiao Hits Harder Than Mike Tyson, Freddie Roach Claims

Hall of Fame boxing coach Freddie Roach insisted that Manny Pacquiao hits harder than Mike Tyson.

Tyson is arguably the most brutal KO artist of all time. During his prime, he was one of the most feared men inside the ring as he often finished his fights with an early knockout win, leaving his helpless opponents on the mat. Same thing could be said about Pacquiao. Back in his “Mexicutioner” days, Pacquiao knocked out an array of Mexican greats.

The fact that Tyson was a heavyweight and Pacquiao is a welterweight, it wouldn’t be hard to tell who hits harder between the two. For obvious reasons, the answer should be Tyson. However, Roach, a veteran trainer who worked with both Tyson and Pacquiao, it was the Filipino legend who possesses more power in his fists than Tyson.

In an interview with FightHype.com, Roach explained why Pacquiao hits harder than Tyson. According to Roach, Pacquiao’s punch has all the elements a hard punch requires – “power, speed and explosion.”

“My whole body went like numb. The power, the speed and explosion is much greater than just dense power,” Roach explained when asked why he thinks Pacquiao hits harder than Tyson.

“Manny is one of the few people who has both,” Roach added.

In 2015, the "Sports Science" team decided to study and figure out how hard Pacquiao hits. The team experimented to know how powerful the people's champ punch is using a punching bag and a high speed-motion capture technology to analyze the punching power.

To everybody’s surprise, the team found out that the results showed the speed of Pacquiao's punch landed in just 0.12 seconds, which was “literally” even faster than a blink of a human eye. The Filipino legend’s punch was delivered using his entire body. And combining his speed, momentum and weight, the c alculations revealed that he had hit the target with “806 pounds” of force. This amount of force revealed that Pacquiao’s punch would likely feel “like a shotgun.”

Though it is kind of hard to imagine how a welterweight could hit harder than a heavyweight who has put people to sleep with one punch. However, nobody has the right to argue against Roach as he had felt the power of both Tyson and Pacquiao first-hand. Regardless of how true Roach’s claim is, what remains a fact is that Tyson and Pacquiao both performed some of the best knockouts in the history boxing.