Before he became the only fighter in boxing history to win world titles in eight weight divisions, Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao was a skeletal teenager selling bread on the streets of Manila. Born on December 17, 1978, in Kibawe, Bukidnon—a remote farming municipality in the southern Philippines—Pacquiao grew up in a poverty so severe that meals were never guaranteed. His parents separated when he was young. His mother, Dionisia, raised six children with almost nothing.
At 14, Pacquiao ran away to Manila, the sprawling capital where opportunity and desperation existed side by side. He lived on the streets, slept in cardboard boxes, and eventually found his way into a boxing gym—not because he dreamed of greatness, but because fighters got fed. He turned professional in January 1995, four days after his sixteenth birthday, weighing just 98 pounds. His first opponent was Edmund Enting Ignacio, a fellow Filipino teenager. Pacquiao won by unanimous decision and earned the equivalent of two dollars.
Nothing about those early years suggested what was coming. Pacquiao lost his third professional fight—a split decision to Rustico Torrecampo—and would lose again, by knockout, to Medgoen Singsurat in 1999 while challenging for the WBC flyweight title. He was talented but undersized, competing in a country with a rich boxing tradition but limited international exposure. The road from General Santos City to global stardom ran through obstacles that would have stopped almost anyone else.
But Pacquiao possessed something that couldn’t be taught: a left hand that arrived from angles opponents never saw, hand speed that bordered on supernatural, and a relentlessness that overwhelmed fighters round after round. Combined with the guidance of trainer Freddie Roach—a partnership that would become one of the most successful in modern boxing—Pacquiao transformed from a regional curiosity into an unstoppable force.
What follows is the story of how a hungry kid from the Philippine provinces achieved something no boxer had done before or has done since.
Division One: Flyweight (112 lbs)
WBC Flyweight Championship – December 4, 1998
Chatchai Sasakul (TKO 8) – Khon Kaen, Thailand
Pacquiao’s first world title came on the road, in the hometown of the defending champion. Chatchai Sasakul was a respected WBC flyweight titleholder fighting in Khon Kaen, Thailand, with everything in his favor—the crowd, the judges, the familiar surroundings. Pacquiao was a 19-year-old with a 13-2 record and little international experience.
None of it mattered. Pacquiao swarmed Sasakul from the opening bell, overwhelming the Thai champion with volume and speed. By the eighth round, Sasakul’s corner had seen enough. Pacquiao, fighting at just 112 pounds, was a world champion.
The reign was short-lived. In his third defense, Pacquiao faced Medgoen Singsurat, another Thai fighter, and lost by knockout in the third round. The defeat stung, but it taught Pacquiao something important: he was killing himself to make flyweight. His body wanted to be bigger. Rather than fight his natural growth, he embraced it—a decision that would define the next two decades of his career.
Division Two: Super Bantamweight (122 lbs)
IBF Super Bantamweight Championship – June 23, 2001
Lehlohonolo Ledwaba (TKO 6) – Las Vegas, Nevada
This was the night America discovered Manny Pacquiao.
The setting was the undercard of Marco Antonio Barrera vs. Naseem Hamed at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, broadcast live on HBO. Lehlohonolo Ledwaba, a South African southpaw, was the IBF super bantamweight champion and a significant favorite. Pacquiao stepped in as a late replacement when the original challenger fell through—just two weeks before the fight.
Nobody outside the Philippines gave him a chance. Ledwaba was slick, experienced, and had never been stopped. Pacquiao walked through him like he wasn’t there. The speed differential was absurd. Pacquiao’s left hand landed seemingly at will, and by the sixth round, referee Jay Nady waved it off. The HBO commentators, including Larry Merchant, were openly astonished.
Pacquiao defended the IBF title twice before vacating to chase bigger names at higher weights. The Ledwaba fight served its purpose: the boxing world now knew his name.
Division Three: Featherweight (126 lbs)
The Ring Featherweight Championship – November 15, 2003
Marco Antonio Barrera (TKO 11) – San Antonio, Texas
Marco Antonio Barrera was a Mexican legend, a future Hall of Famer with a record of 58-3, owner of victories over Hamed, Erik Morales (twice at that point), and Kevin Kelley. He was The Ring Magazine’s top-rated featherweight, considered one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world. Pacquiao was a heavy underdog, dismissed as too small, too inexperienced at 126 pounds, too reliant on one big punch.
What happened at the Alamodome remains one of the most stunning upsets in modern boxing history.
Pacquiao didn’t just beat Barrera—he brutalized him. From the first round, the speed and power differential was obvious. Pacquiao dropped Barrera in the third round with a left hook. He opened cuts over both of Barrera’s eyes. By the middle rounds, the Mexican champion was surviving rather than fighting. In the eleventh round, with Barrera’s face a swollen mess, the referee stopped the fight.
The boxing press scrambled to recalibrate. ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and The Ring all ran features asking the same question: who is this guy? Pacquiao had arrived not as a contender but as a force.
Division Four: Super Featherweight (130 lbs)
WBC Super Featherweight Championship – July 2, 2008
David Diaz (TKO 9) – Las Vegas, Nevada
Between the Barrera destruction and the David Diaz fight, Pacquiao engaged in one of boxing’s great trilogies. He and Juan Manuel Márquez—the Mexican technician with timing as precise as a Swiss watch—fought to a controversial draw in May 2004, then a disputed split decision win for Pacquiao in March 2008. Both fights were wars. Both could have gone either way. The rivalry would define both men’s careers.
Against Diaz, a Chicago native and legitimate 130-pound titleholder, Pacquiao was moving up to super featherweight for the first time. Diaz had never been stopped in 35 professional fights. Pacquiao ended that streak in nine rounds, dropping Diaz three times before referee Kenny Bayless halted the contest.
Four divisions down, four to go.
Division Five: Lightweight (135 lbs)
The Ring Lightweight Championship – December 6, 2008
Oscar De La Hoya (TKO 8) – Las Vegas, Nevada
This was the fight that transformed Pacquiao from boxing star to global phenomenon.
Oscar De La Hoya was boxing’s golden boy—a six-division world champion, Olympic gold medalist, pay-per-view king, and founder of Golden Boy Promotions. He had faced Julio César Chávez, Pernell Whitaker, Félix Trinidad, Shane Mosley, Bernard Hopkins, and Floyd Mayweather Jr. De La Hoya wasn’t just a boxer—he was an institution.
The catch-weight was set at 147 pounds. On fight night at the MGM Grand, De La Hoya weighed 145 pounds. Pacquiao came in at 142. The difference in natural size was supposed to be decisive. Instead, it was irrelevant.
Pacquiao overwhelmed De La Hoya from the opening bell. The speed gap was embarrassing. De La Hoya, who had shared the ring with the best fighters of two generations, couldn’t find Pacquiao with anything clean. By the middle rounds, De La Hoya’s face was lumped and his body language defeated. His corner stopped the fight after the eighth round.
The pay-per-view, broadcast on HBO PPV, generated 1.25 million buys, making it one of the best-selling fights of the year. De La Hoya announced his retirement shortly afterward. Pacquiao had ended a legend’s career.
Division Six: Welterweight (147 lbs)
WBO Welterweight Championship – November 14, 2009
Miguel Cotto (TKO 12) – Las Vegas, Nevada
Miguel Cotto was no faded star looking for a payday. The Puerto Rican slugger was a legitimate welterweight champion, a pay-per-view draw in his own right, and a devastating body puncher with a massive fanbase. His only loss had come to Antonio Margarito—a fight later clouded by controversy over Margarito’s hand wraps.
Pacquiao was moving up to full welterweight, giving away natural size to a bigger man. It didn’t matter.
The fight at MGM Grand was competitive for six rounds, with Cotto using his jab effectively and landing hard body shots. Then Pacquiao took over. His speed and combination punching gradually broke Cotto down. In the fourth round, a left hook dropped Cotto heavily. From there, the Puerto Rican champion was on borrowed time. Pacquiao dropped him again in the twelfth round, and referee Kenny Bayless stopped the fight with Cotto on unsteady legs.
The WBO welterweight title—a true 147-pound championship—now belonged to Manny Pacquiao. Six divisions conquered.
Division Seven: Super Welterweight (154 lbs)
WBC Super Welterweight Championship – November 13, 2010
Antonio Margarito (UD 12) – Arlington, Texas
The Margarito fight was personal.
Antonio Margarito had been caught by the California State Athletic Commission with illegal plaster-like substances in his hand wraps before a fight with Shane Mosley in 2009. The discovery cast a shadow over his brutal knockout of Cotto a year earlier. Margarito served a suspension, but the taint remained. Pacquiao took the fight in part to avenge what had been done to Cotto, a friend and sometime training partner.
The venue was Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The crowd of 41,734 set an indoor boxing attendance record. Margarito was the naturally bigger man by far—he stood nearly six inches taller than Pacquiao and had spent most of his career fighting at 147 to 154 pounds while Pacquiao began at 112.
Size proved meaningless. Pacquiao systematically dismantled Margarito over twelve rounds, battering his face into grotesque swelling. By the late rounds, Margarito’s right eye was completely shut, and there were calls for the ringside physician to stop the fight. Pacquiao won every round on some scorecards. The official decision was unanimous: 120-108, 118-110, 118-110.
Seven divisions. One to go.
Division Eight: The Debate and the Record
What Counts as Eight?
Pacquiao’s eight-division championship is boxing’s most unique record, but the specifics require explanation.
The International Boxing Hall of Fame, BoxRec, and The Ring Magazine all recognize Pacquiao as an eight-division champion, but the exact accounting varies depending on which sanctioning bodies and which titles you prioritize. The cleanest version of the record looks like this:
| Division | Weight | Title | Year | Opponent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flyweight | 112 lbs | WBC | 1998 | Chatchai Sasakul |
| Super Bantamweight | 122 lbs | IBF | 2001 | Lehlohonolo Ledwaba |
| Featherweight | 126 lbs | The Ring | 2003 | Marco Antonio Barrera |
| Super Featherweight | 130 lbs | WBC | 2008 | David Diaz |
| Lightweight | 135 lbs | The Ring | 2008 | Oscar De La Hoya |
| Welterweight | 147 lbs | WBO | 2009 | Miguel Cotto |
| Super Welterweight | 154 lbs | WBC | 2010 | Antonio Margarito |
| Welterweight | 147 lbs | WBA | 2019 | Keith Thurman |
Some historians point to the WBA welterweight title Pacquiao won from Keith Thurman in July 2019 as completing a second reign at welterweight rather than representing a distinct eighth division. Others count his lineal championships differently. The Transnational Boxing Rankings Board has its own methodology.
What no one disputes is this: no other fighter in boxing history has won recognized world titles across eight separate weight classes. Oscar De La Hoya won titles in six. Floyd Mayweather Jr. won in five. Sugar Ray Leonard won in five. Thomas Hearns, often cited as boxing’s original multi-division conqueror, won in five (or six, depending on how you count). Roberto Durán won in four.
Pacquiao stands alone.
The Rivalries: Márquez and Mayweather
No account of Pacquiao’s career is complete without addressing two names: Juan Manuel Márquez and Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Márquez: The Nemesis
Pacquiao and Márquez fought four times between 2004 and 2012. The rivalry produced some of the best action of either man’s career—and one of the most devastating knockouts in boxing history.
Fight 1: May 8, 2004 – Pacquiao dropped Márquez three times in the first round but couldn’t finish him. Márquez rallied, and the fight ended in a draw that many observers felt Márquez deserved to win.
Fight 2: March 15, 2008 – Another war, another disputed decision. Pacquiao won by split decision, but two of the three scorecards could easily have gone the other way. HBO’s unofficial scorer Harold Lederman had it for Márquez.
Fight 3: November 12, 2011 – Pacquiao won by majority decision in a fight where he did the cleaner, more effective work. Still, Márquez’s pressure and counters made it closer than the scorecards suggested.
Fight 4: December 8, 2012 – The ending remains one of boxing’s most replayed moments. With the fight close after five rounds, Pacquiao threw a jab and stepped forward. Márquez timed him with a perfect counter right hand. Pacquiao went down face-first and lay motionless for several minutes. The knockout—available on YouTube and countless highlight reels—was as brutal as any in modern boxing.
Márquez’s place in history is secure, but his career will forever be intertwined with Pacquiao’s. Four fights, no clear winner, and a rivalry that defined both men.
Mayweather: The Fight That Took Too Long
Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao were the two best fighters of their generation. For nearly a decade, fans demanded they face each other. Negotiations repeatedly fell apart—over drug testing protocols, over money splits, over pride.
By the time they finally met on May 2, 2015, at the MGM Grand, both fighters were past their primes. Pacquiao was 36 and had been knocked cold by Márquez. Mayweather was 38 and hadn’t faced elite opposition in years.
The fight generated $410 million in pay-per-view revenue—the richest single event in boxing history. The action failed to match the buildup. Mayweather used his jab and defensive mastery to control distance and win a clear unanimous decision (118-110, 116-112, 116-112). Pacquiao revealed afterward that he had fought with a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder.
The rematch demand persisted for years, but it never happened. The rivalry exists as boxing’s great what-if: what would have happened if they’d fought in 2009 or 2010, when both were at their peaks?
Beyond Boxing: Senator, Icon, Symbol
Pacquiao’s life outside the ring is as improbable as his career inside it.
He served in the Philippine House of Representatives from 2010 to 2016, representing Sarangani province. In 2016, he won election to the Philippine Senate. In 2022, he ran for president of the Philippines, finishing third.
His business interests span real estate, retail, media, and entertainment. He has released music albums, appeared in films, and played professional basketball in the Philippine Basketball Association. His face appears on billboards across Manila. His fights remain national events that empty streets across the Philippines.
Pacquiao’s social and political views have generated controversy. His comments opposing same-sex marriage in 2016 cost him a Nike endorsement deal and drew international criticism. His political positions have evolved over the years, and his voting record in the Senate has been inconsistent. The fighter who transcended sports to become a symbol of Filipino pride is also a complicated public figure whose views don’t always align with his global fanbase.
The Final Act
Pacquiao’s last fight came on August 21, 2021, against Yordenis Ugás, a Cuban welterweight who had won the WBA title when Pacquiao was stripped for inactivity. Ugás won by unanimous decision. Pacquiao, at 42, looked diminished—his legs slower, his timing off, his reflexes finally catching up with his age.
He announced his retirement a month later.
The final record: 62-8-2, with 39 knockouts. Eight division titles. Hall of Fame induction guaranteed. A legacy as one of the five or ten greatest fighters who ever lived.
The Meaning of Eight Divisions
To understand what Pacquiao accomplished, consider what it requires to win a world title in even one weight class. A fighter must climb the rankings, beat contenders, earn a title shot, then defeat a champion—someone who has already run that same gauntlet. Most elite fighters spend entire careers at one or two weights.
Pacquiao did it eight times.
He started at 112 pounds and won a world title at 154—a span of 42 pounds, roughly the difference between a minimumweight and a middleweight. He gave away size and reach in nearly every superfight of his career and won anyway. He knocked out legends, survived wars, and kept fighting at the top level for over two decades.
The eight-division record may never be broken. Modern boxing’s fragmented title landscape makes it both easier and harder to claim championships across weights—easier because there are four major sanctioning bodies handing out belts, harder because the talent pool is deeper and the sport’s economics discourage the kind of risk-taking Pacquiao embraced.
More fundamentally, Pacquiao’s achievement required a specific combination of attributes: elite hand speed that didn’t fade as he aged, power that traveled with him across weight classes, a chin that absorbed punishment from bigger men, and a willingness to fight anyone, anywhere, at any weight. That combination doesn’t come along often. It may never come along again.
Where He Stands
Ranking fighters across eras is impossible to do objectively, but the exercise is irresistible.
The International Boxing Hall of Fame will induct Pacquiao in the class of 2025, the first year he’s eligible. The Ring Magazine has ranked him among the ten greatest fighters in boxing history. ESPN’s pound-for-pound rankings placed him at number one multiple times during his peak years.
Among his contemporaries, only Floyd Mayweather Jr. has a comparable claim to generational greatness—and the debate between them remains unsettled. Mayweather never lost, but Pacquiao fought with more daring and across more weight classes. Mayweather was the better defensive fighter; Pacquiao was the more exciting one. Both belong in any conversation about the best of their era.
Against the all-time greats—Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Henry Armstrong, Roberto Durán, Sugar Ray Leonard—Pacquiao holds his own. His eight-division record is unique. His run of superfight victories between 2008 and 2011 rivals any stretch in boxing history. His global impact, particularly in Asia, exceeded any fighter before him.
Conclusion
Manny Pacquiao entered a Manila gym as a starving teenager and left boxing two decades later as a senator, a global icon, and the holder of a record that may never be matched. His career arc—from 98-pound novice to eight-division champion—remains the most improbable success story the sport has produced.
The knockouts were spectacular. The rivalries were unforgettable. The willingness to fight anyone, regardless of size or risk, set him apart from more cautious champions. But the essence of Pacquiao’s appeal was simpler than any statistic: when he fought, people watched, because they knew something extraordinary might happen.
Eight divisions. Sixty-two wins. One of a kind.
