Manny Pacquiao is now 30 years into his professional career and about to embark on yet another attempt at the world title.
On Saturday, July 19th, he will head into the ring to face WBC welterweight champion Mario Barrios in an anticipated fight.
He will have to contend with two huge factors of age (46) and a four-year layoff from the sport to become champion again.
Already, one boxing legend, Bernard Hopkins, believes Pacquiao will beat Barrios, but now another has come out in support of his former rival.
Juan Manuel Marquez backs experienced Manny Pacquiao to beat WBC champion Mario Barrios
Juan Manuel Marquez, known for the most iconic knockout of the Filipino, has backed his longtime foe to get the job done.
Speaking in a recent interview, he said: “Manny Pacquiao is 46 years old, he’s a professional, training hard every day, let me tell you something, Manny Pacquiao is the new world champion.
“The most important thing is experience… it’s power, it’s speed, it’s everything.”
A former multi-division world champion himself, Marquez gave the champion some praise but still believes the gulf in experience is too much to handle.
He said: “Mario Barrios is a young fighter; he is a strong fighter, but the most important thing in this fight is experience.”
Juan Manuel Marquez explains how he landed THAT Manny Pacquiao KO
These two names have been synonymous with each other’s careers, and their four-fight series is a part of boxing legend.
While he may have lost two fights by narrow margins and drawn a third, he put an exclamation mark on the quadrilogy with a sixth-round knockout still replayed by fight fans today.
Speaking in the same interview, he was asked how he’d worked on the knockout that ended their iconic feud.
Marquez explained: “I thought about the mistakes that Manny Pacquiao did, when he feints, he goes to the inside distance.
“When he did that, I counter-punched him with the right hand. I practiced in my mind every day.
“We studied six rounds, he feints and goes to the inside, in the first three fights he did that, I said ‘this is the most important point for me’.”
Manny will not want to have any repeat of that knockout loss, but he will take solace in the fact that he hasn’t been stopped in a fight since.