What It's Like To Fight Manny Pacquiao From A Fighter's Perspective

Manny Pacquiao will fight Juan Manuel Marquez for the third time this Saturday. Everyone likes Paquiao in the fight, including other boxers. He's too fast, too powerful, too accurate, too everything. David Diaz fought Pacquiao on June 28, 2008. He got TKO'd in the ninth. Here's Diaz telling Eric Raskin at HBO.com what it's like to go up against the Pac Man:

I've honestly never fought anybody like that before in my life. I faced some pretty fast guys in the amateurs, like Zab Judah for example, but nobody with Pacquiao's combination of speed and accuracy. Most fast fighters just throw a lot of punches without worrying about whether they all land; Manny isn't like that. He hits you with one shot, and then the next shot is coming right behind it, and that one lands too. It's just unbelievable.

And his defense was better than I expected too. He never stayed in one spot. I'd have to go chase him down all the time. I wanted to get him in the corner or get him on the ropes, but he was very elusive.

I would compare the experience of fighting Pacquiao to getting caught in a hail storm. You know how hail comes down really hard and fast? It won't knock you out, but it's annoying and it's just hitting you all the time and there's nothing you can do about it. That's how I felt fighting Pacquiao. His punches aren't necessarily hurting you, but you're caught in a hail storm and you're just like, "Man, where the hell is it coming from?" If I tried to keep my right hand up to block the left hand, then I left the other side open and he just kept finding ways to hit me.

Round 3 from Pacquiao-Marquez 2 is a taste of what's in store: