Until then he had fought only in his native Philippines, Thailand, or Japan \u2013\u00a0he had made his debut in 1995 at light flyweight \u2013\u00a0contributing to him accepting the offer to challenge the IBF super-bantamweight champion<\/a> Lehlo Ledwaba with two weeks\u2019 notice when Enrique Sanchez was ruled out.<\/p>\n Manny Pacquiao was an unknown quantity heading into his clash with Lehlo Ledwaba[\/caption]<\/p>\n When he fought Floyd Mayweather<\/a> in 2015, a total of $600m was generated, but as the late-notice replacement for Mexico\u2019s Sanchez, the 23-year-old Pacquiao was paid $40,000 \u2013\u00a0a reflection of the value of a fight between a South African and a Filipino respectively weighing 122lbs and 121lbs in Las Vegas in 2001.<\/p>\n \u201cI went to the States to fight a different opponent [who] was orthodox,\u201d Ledwaba once told The Ring Magazine. <\/p>\n \u201cI was told he was hurt and they found Manny to replace him. I did not know Manny was a southpaw. Southpaws you need to prepare well for.\u201d<\/p>\n A hint of Pacquiao\u2019s promise perhaps lay in the fact that he was guided to the ring that night at the MGM Grand by none other than the great Freddie Roach.<\/p>\n Ledwaba, regardless, had two months earlier convincingly defeated the formidable Carlos Contreras in what represented the fifth defence of the vacant title he had won in 1999 when defeating John Michael Johnson. With a record that read 31-1-1, he had also won his previous 23 fights.<\/p>\n Oscar De La Hoya, then the world\u2019s highest-profile fighter and Pacquiao\u2019s opponent the night in 2008 that Pacquiao won his first super fight, was the lead attraction in the main event in which he was defending his WBC light-middleweight title against Javier Castillejo. <\/p>\n Ledwaba featured on his undercard because he was considered on course for a bigger future; the odds against Pacquiao were so great that casinos in Vegas reportedly refused to take bets on their fight.<\/p>\n \u201cI was a day away from going home to the Philippines when the fight was offered to me,\u201d Pacquiao later said. <\/p>\n \u201cI was so excited. This was a great opportunity for me. There was no way I was going to pass it up.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were staying in a small apartment in Hollywood, near the Denny\u2019s on Sunset Boulevard, not far from the highway [101].\u00a0<\/p>\n Ledwaba was knocked out in the sixth round[\/caption]<\/p>\n \u201cWe wandered over to a gym that had been recommended to us \u2013 Wild Card Boxing Club \u2013 and my manager introduced himself to a man in the gym and told him he was looking for a trainer to work mitts with me.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat man turned out to be the gym owner, Freddie Roach, who agreed to work with me.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter the first round, I returned to my corner and said I just found my new trainer.\u00a0Freddie was great with the mitts and as I soon found out, great with instruction too.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSuddenly, as I was preparing to go back to the Philippines, we get an offer to challenge Lehlo Ledwaba.<\/p>\n \u201cI was the number-three-rated contender and the two fighters ahead of me couldn\u2019t, or wouldn\u2019t, take the fight.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFreddie and I had trained together about two weeks and now I\u2019m walking into the ring at the MGM Grand to fight Ledwaba on HBO pay-per-view.\u00a0It was crazy.\u00a0That fight changed my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Pacquiao snatched the IBF super-bantamweight title away from the South African[\/caption]<\/p>\n \u201cIf that call comes a day later, Manny misses out on that fight,\u201d said Roach.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe trained for two weeks and every day I\u2019m falling more and more in love with his boxing skills and power.\u00a0He was that good.<\/p>\n \u201cSo now it\u2019s fight week and I\u2019m going to every casino trying to lay a bet on Manny.\u00a0Unfortunately, the fight was considered such a mismatch that no casino would post odds on it.\u201d<\/p>\n Those working the broadcast for HBO \u2013 Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and former heavyweight champion<\/a> George Foreman \u2013\u00a0had to attempt to learn to pronounce Pacquiao\u2019s then-little-known name and about his background on the eve of his US debut. <\/p>\n They, like almost everyone else outside of Pacquiao\u2019s camp \u2013 the experienced promoters Top Rank included \u2013 had expected Ledwaba, 29 years old, to win.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pacquiao proceeded to make what remains one of the most memorable of all statements in a boxing ring. <\/p>\n \t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Against a proven champion, his breathtaking speed and spite meant that he recorded three knockdowns before, in the sixth round, forcing the intervention of Joe Cortez, the referee.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fifty-nine seconds of the sixth round had passed before Cortez rightly recognised that Ledwaba required his protection. <\/p>\n The three ringside judges each had Pacquiao leading by scores of 50-44.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cManny jumped on Ledwaba from the start and finished him in the sixth round,\u201d recalled Roach.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was brutal.\u00a0But what a night.\u00a0I remember we all went to dinner to celebrate at some small restaurant near the MGM Grand. <\/p>\n \u201cManny and I went from strangers to a world championship team in about two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI tried almost everything,\u201d explained Ledwaba. \u201cI\u2019m a boxer who used to think. I always tried to outwork an opponent, but it was totally different against Manny. <\/p>\n \u201cFirstly, I was flat-footed, but he was on his toes all the time, so he was hard to hit. I couldn\u2019t nail him. He\u2019d jump in and throw his punches \u2013 it was tough.<\/p>\n \u201cPacquiao wasn\u2019t known in the US until he fought me. At that time, I was at the peak of my career. <\/p>\n \u201cI was regarded as one of the best [super bantamweights] around. For Manny to beat me was a breakthrough, so I would say I introduced him as far as America is concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n Ledwaba died of Covid, aged 49, in 2021. He had fought a further seven times before retiring, recording four defeats and demonstrating that, as with so many of Pacquiao\u2019s other opponents, the Filipino left the best of him in the ring.<\/p>\n Pacquiao\u2019s remarkable success, in later defeating, among others, Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, an epic rivalry with Juan Manuel Marquez<\/a>, De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton<\/a>, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito \u2013 the latter at a weight as high as light middleweight \u2013 ultimately served to enhance his reputation.<\/p>\n talkBOXING<\/strong> is now on Twitter and Facebook.<\/p>\n Follow us on social media for big breaking boxing news, exclusive interviews and the best bits from our talkBOXING YouTube show.<\/p>\n Manny Pacquiao was a super bantamweight whose record read 32-2 the night his career was transformed when he fought in the US for the first time. Until then he had fought only in his native Philippines, Thailand, or Japan \u2013\u00a0he had made his debut in 1995 at light flyweight \u2013\u00a0contributing to him accepting the offer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.ndegeya.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.ndegeya.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.ndegeya.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.ndegeya.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.ndegeya.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.ndegeya.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.ndegeya.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.ndegeya.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.ndegeya.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.ndegeya.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/talksport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/02\/manny-pacquiao-swings-left-hook-969694381.jpg?strip=all&w=960\")
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