{"id":179366,"date":"2025-06-12T21:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T21:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/179366\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T21:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T21:25:08","slug":"current-world-champion-has-no-doubt-he-would-smoke-prime-manny-pacquiao-if-they-fought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/179366\/","title":{"rendered":"Current World Champion Has No Doubt He Would &#8216;Smoke&#8217; Prime Manny Pacquiao If They Fought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An unbeaten world champion has backed himself to prevail against a prime version of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.secondsout.com\/topic\/manny-pacquiao\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Manny Pacquiao<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Filipino great remains the only fighter in boxing history to win world titles across eight divisions in a professional career that initially spanned between 1995 and 2021.<\/p>\n<p>He has picked up a number of legacy defining wins throughout the course of his tenure, defeating a number of generational greats such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.secondsout.com\/topic\/oscar-de-la-hoya\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Oscar De La Hoya<\/a>, Erik Morales, Miguel Cotto and Marco Antonio Barrera amongst others.<\/p>\n<p>It was announced at the end of last month that \u2018Pac-Man\u2019 would be making a sensational return to boxing after a four year hiatus, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.secondsout.com\/news\/manny-pacquiao-on-barrios-size-difference\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">as he prepares to face reigning WBC welterweight champion Mario Barrios on Saturday July 19 in Las Vegas.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=30H6zkdL6KM\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">In an interview with the Say Cheese channel,<\/a> unbeaten WBC lightweight champion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.secondsout.com\/topic\/shakur-stevenson\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shakur Stevenson<\/a> claimed he would have \u2018smoked\u2019 a prime version of Pacquiao, but admitted he has respect for the Filipino great.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cI think I would smoke Pacquiao. Yeah I think so. I like Pacquiao but like I was gonna make sure he took them tests, I wasn\u2019t gonna fight him without making sure he was like doing the tests and everything was like straight fire, no cheating or nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Stevenson is unbeaten as a professional, winning all 23 of his professional bouts since making his debut back in 2017 after picking up an Olympic Silver Medal in the Rio De Janeiro games a year earlier.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old from Newark, New Jersey is set to make <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/boxing\/story\/_\/id\/44767274\/shakur-stevenson-defend-title-vs-william-zepeda-july-12\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the next defence of his title on Saturday July 12 against Mexico\u2019s WBC interim lightweight champion William Zepeda<\/a> who is also unbeaten as a professional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An unbeaten world champion has backed himself to prevail against a prime version of Manny Pacquiao. The Filipino&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-179366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114672508896502764","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}