Manny Pacquiao Warned Possible Next Opponent 'Hits Harder' Than Him

Manny Pacquiao could be facing an opponent who has more power in his hands.

It has been nearly two years since Pacquiao last entered the ring. However, the world’s only eight-division titlist is still being targeted by current world champions in his weight class. Among the host of welterweights who have been eyeing Pacquiao, the 42-year-old has set his sights on Mikey Garcia.

Nothing is concrete yet regarding the potential Pacquiao vs. Garcia fight, but the media is already hyped about it. Sharing an interesting insight about the looming welterweight showdown, Garcia’s older brother and trainer, Robert Garcia, recently said that he has been told his pupil “hits harder” than Pacquiao.

“Mikey’s hungry,” Robert recently told Fight Hub TV. “Mikey’s training hard and Mikey’s got skills. Mikey also has power. We’ve had fighters who’ve faced [Manny] Pacquiao before - [Antonio] Margarito, Brandon Rios, and they all tell us that Mikey hits harder, you know Jessie Vargas also mentioned something like that.”

Robert isn’t the first person to say that Mikey hits harder than Pacquiao. According to undefeated super lightweight champ Jose Ramirez, who used to spar Pacquiao and Mikey in the past, both are powerful, but the latter had “a little heavier hand.”

“They hit the same, but I think Mikey [Garcia] has probably a little heavier hand,” Ramirez said last year.

“Pacquiao just puts it together really well, he puts three or four punches. It doesn’t take a lot of power to land a clean shot and for someone to feel it,” he added. “As long as the shots are pointed properly it could hurt anybody.”

Despite believing that Mikey has a more devastating power than Pacquiao, Robert is not at ease as he is still convinced that the Filipino boxing legend defied the laws of time in his last performance.

“It’s pretty interesting but the fight won’t be easy,” the trainer admitted. “I know for a fact that Pacquiao always trains hard. Pacquiao still has a lot left in his body. It would be a dangerous fight but something we would really take advantage of and try to pull it off.”

“We all seen his last fight against Kieth Thurman [who is] a solid welterweight and Pacquiao dominated,” he explained. “He won the fight, he dropped Thurman. Even at 40 something Pacquiao is still Pacquiao, he is one of those few fighters that we see in a lifetime.”