LAS VEGAS – Respect and deference adhere strongly to Manny Pacquiao given his standing as a newly inducted Hall of Fame boxer and record eight-division champion.
On Saturday night, the challenge that falls upon Pacquiao opponent and WBC welterweight champion Mario Barrios Jnr is ensuring that those human considerations have no existence in the ring.
“I know who Manny Pacquiao is,” Barrios trainer Bob Santos told BoxingScene. “Manny Pacquiao is the nicest, most respectful, humble fighter I’ve ever been around. Because of my love for this sport, my respect is at a level you can’t imagine.
“That being said, I know who he is in the ring: an absolute killer, a destroyer. The most contrasting person from so grateful outside the ring to an absolute assassin inside.”
Thus, the 30-year-old Barrios, 29-2-1 (18 KOs), has devoted a fierce, full 12-week training camp to the task of defeating the legendary Pacquiao, 62-8-2 (39 KOs), who returns from a four-year ring absence at age 46 seeking to reunite with a welterweight belt and join only Bernard Hopkins and George Foreman as men who’ve won a world title after turning 45.
“When you prepare to your absolute best, you should be confident,” Santos said of Barrios. “He prepared to his maximum effort. He pushed himself harder than maybe every camp since he first fought for a title.
“He’s fighting a global icon – a Muhammad Ali, a Mike Tyson, a Floyd Mayweather. This is bigger than boxing. You go up against someone like that, you definitely want to make history. So our confidence level is high, because he gave his heart and soul to this camp.”
Yet, there must be a consideration to the respect – and perhaps intimidation – Barrios might feel with Pacquiao, who has provided so many highlight knockouts and victories over a 30-year career that counts Hall of Famers Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto, Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez and Ricky Hatton as beaten foes.
Hall of Famer Teddy Atlas, who cornered then-champion Michael Moorer in his famed loss to Foreman, insists fighters like Moorer and Barrios understand how to set aside their personal feelings for an opponent once that first bell rings.
“The fighter is not going to overlook anybody,” Atlas said. “The fighter’s attitude – good or bad – is that the guy in front of him in the ring is to be conquered. That’s his enemy. It’s not Manny Pacquiao anymore. It’s the next guy up. It’s the guy threatening your career, your livelihood … and he’s threatening you in a physical way.
“It doesn’t get more basic than that. Conquer or be conquered. That’s who fighters are. Barrios can love Pacquiao, shake his hand before the fight, embrace him after, but when the bell rings, he’s just the next guy threatening him. Every fighter knows the danger of getting in the ring.”
Barrios has said he’s prepared to wear the black hat of the man who sent Pacquiao to retirement, exchanging that for the profile boost of participating in Saturday’s pay-per-view main event at MGM Grand (Prime Video, PPV.COM) after previously headlining pay-per-views in 2021 and 2022 in losses to WBA lightweight champion Gervonta Davis and former welterweight champion Keith Thurman.
Atlas pointed Barrios to following “Exhibit A” of younger champion versus legend – the 1980 beatdown of Muhammad Ali by his former sparring partner Larry Holmes.
It was a mournful, brutal occasion – one that Ali exposed himself to by signing the contract, just as Pacquiao has done by committing to the Barrios fight.
Pacquiao and his handlers see Barrios as a come-forward, defensively flawed fighter vulnerable to the creative angles, power and double-fisted creativity that Pacquiao wielded in his younger years behind superb footwork and movement.
And should he win, there’s rumblings that it could resurrect a Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jnr rematch with the WBC belt on the line.
Atlas said it’s those considerations for what Pacquiao has accomplished that must occupy Barrios’ mind. He likened it to a moment more than 40 years ago when Atlas guided a teenaged Mike Tyson to some smoker fights in the Bronx, convincing a fighter and his handlers to participate in an “exhibition” with larger gloves.
“It was an exhibition in word only. I told [Tyson] to be ready, and sure enough, the opponent came right after him, and Tyson wound up knocking him out,” Atlas recalled. “When it was over, and they were bringing their guy to consciousness, the other guy’s people started to complain, saying, ‘It was only supposed to be an exhibition.’
“I got in front of it, and as Tyson was standing there behind me, he said the only thing that was relevant: ‘I wasn’t trying to do anything to him that he wasn’t trying to do to me.’
“He was right. That’s it. The simple words were poignant. In other words, when you put the gloves on and get in the ring, there’s an understanding what it’s about. It’s only for one reason: Conquer or be conquered.”
Regardless of how it looked in the outcome, Atlas insists Moorer shared the same attitude before getting flattened by Foreman while leading on all three scorecards in the 10th round of their 1994 fight – also staged at MGM Grand.
“With Moorer – and it’s the same thing I’m sure will go through the mind of Barrios – he’s fighting a guy who’s a former world champion. This isn’t just a guy. It’s not just that you’re fighting a legend, and want to avoid being too respectful or pull your punches … but it’s that you should never assume anything, never take anything for granted and never even think about lightening up,” Atlas said.
“This is a former world champion, and he doesn’t just become not a great fighter. All Barrios should see is a great fighter who’s threatening me. The opponent never thinks less of himself than the champion. They both think the same: that’s the mindset of a fighter.”
Santos said Barrios has developed his jab, has become markedly stronger and has the benefit of the prior pay-per-views to better navigate the distractions that can hinder camp and complicate fight week.
Santos himself saw that lesson learned when he guided Robert Guerrero to his first major pay-per-view fight against Mayweather Jnr in 2013.
“I recall Floyd asking Robert, ‘Are you ready for this?’ It’s not about being ready to go toe-to-toe, but handling the first big event you’ve been in, so many things swirling around, so many people dragging you in different directions. You’re a little more intense and more tight than usual,” Santos said.
Additionally, Santos has observed Pacquiao since the time he first showed up at trainer Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Boxing Club in 2001, through the sparring sessions with the former Santos champion Guerrero.
“I know him pretty damn well and have insight to his psyche, and will use that to Mario Barrios’ advantage,” Santos said.
Does that mean he’s preparing to orchestrate the destruction of 46-year-old Pacquiao?
“We’re prepared to do whatever it takes to be victorious. When you sign the contract, it’s still Manny Pacquiao, and if you get hit in the right place at the right time, it’s still, goodnight, Irene for anybody,” Santos said. “Mario has to go in with a ‘kill or be killed’ mindset. And, you know, 30-40 years from now, it will still be known that he fought and beat one of the top four fighters in history. It will be the biggest accomplishment in Barrios’ career.
“The million-dollar question is, ‘What Pacquiao are we going to get?’ I think of it as we’re fighting the Pacquiao who [defeated] Thurman [in 2019 at age 40]. Can he turn back the clock like he did? At that point, we have to catch lightning in the bottle like Marquez [did in knocking out Pacquiao in their fourth bout], or it will be very tough to beat him.”
Atlas admits his first inclination is to foresee Barrios dismantling Pacquiao, but he also thought Thurman would do that, only to see the younger fighter decked in the first round.
“Would I put my money on Barrios? No. Should Pacquiao be in the ring? I’d rather he not. But a special guy like him, who’s been that special, until I see him [dominated], I’m going to reserve what comes out of my mouth because of the reverence I have for him and my belief from 50 years in the game: never count out special people,” Atlas said.
“The reflexes can go, the speed can go, the physicality can go. All of those things. And that can be dangerous. But if some of that remains, there’s one thing that doesn’t get old, that doesn’t get eroded, that doesn’t get aged. And that thing is called character.”
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
