“When I came back, I didn’t realize it was five years I’d been out of the ring. You gotta get used to being hit. You gotta get used to training that hard, at that level…It’s more mental, more psychological than it is physical.” That’s what the 1976 Montreal Olympic gold-medalist, Sugar Ray Leonard, told Fight Hub TV last week. He was reflecting on Manny Pacquiao’s return to face WBC welterweight champion Mario Barrios on July 19, 2025, in Las Vegas, four years after retiring. Leonard drew parallels to his own 1997 comeback against Hector Camacho after a six-year hiatus. However, the thing is, fans and boxing insiders would be happy if it weren’t for the fact that the Filipino legend is 46 years old now. And he is stepping up to face a 30-year-old Barrios in his prime.
Barrios isn’t holding back. He’ll aim to topple the Filipino legend to boost his career, eyeing Manny Pacquiao’s 72-fight legacy (62-8-2) that ended with a 2021 loss to Yordenis Ugas. Defeating a Hall of Famer like Pacquiao could cement Barrios as a top contender. Yet, the 69-year-old Sugar Ray Leonard knows it better than anyone else. Since he hung up his gloves three times, only to lace them up again and again.
Doubling down on his previous stance, the boxing legend dropped his opinion about the age gap while talking to TMZ Sports. The reporter asked precisely what the issue was. Your motor responses get rusty when you’re in your 40s. How did the reporter know? He was 41 himself. So, asking it out of experience, he noted that his body is different from what it was when he was “younger.”
So he thought that there must surely be a reflex and power difference between a man who is nearing his 50s and someone who is at the peak of their health in their 30s. Surprisingly, Leonard did not look shocked at the mere age difference. Sure, the age and everything mattered. But from his perspective, the amount of time a fighter has spent inside the ring, training and studying the best ones in the sport, is what counts more. In just one line, he tallied it up for the reporter: “You know what, man? It’s all up here [in the mind]—and it’s here [in the heart].”
The former five-division champion continued, “It’s what you got. It’s what you use.” Still, acknowledging the odds that Manny Pacquiao faces, Sugar Ray Leonard sent his wishes to the fellow legend. “Stay healthy,” he said. But why? You see, motivation and experience are one thing. But when the ring has something planned for you, there’s nothing to stop it from happening. Taking a peek back into Sugar’s past would make it evident why.
Manny Pacquiao isn’t the first to get pulled back to the ring
Pacquiao’s return after four years mirrors Leonard’s 1997 comeback against Camacho for the IBC middleweight title at Atlantic City’s Convention Center. At 40 years and 9 months—younger than Pacquiao is now—Leonard struggled. The bout ended in a fifth-round TKO loss after Camacho, then 34, overwhelmed him.
Already reeling from a 1991 loss to Terry Norris at age 34, Sugar Ray Leonard was knocked down twice. In the fourth round, an accidental cut above Leonard’s eye opened, and in the fifth, Camacho unleashed a left hook, a right hand, and three left uppercuts, dropping the Wilmington native. Despite the Wilmington native’s attempt to continue, the referee stopped the fight at 1:08. The bout didn’t even last half of the chosen timeframe.
Sugar Ray Leonard knocked down by Hector Camacho in their March 1997 bout at the Convention Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Could the eight-division world champion face a similar fate? Mario Barrios, younger and hungrier, mirrors the Puerto Rico boxer’s prime. Yet, Manny Pacquiao’s performance on fight night will outweigh his age. Will the PacMan’s experience triumph, or will Barrios’ youth prevail? The way Pacquiao shows up will be more important than his age. And most of us are rooting for PacMan’s victory, aren’t we?
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