Manny Pacquiao was called a ‘cocky little fighter’ in wild brawl that left opponent brutally injured

One of the craziest fights of Manny Pacquiao’s career took place 29 years ago today.

Pacquiao’s illustrious tenure in the ring has been full of memorable victories and fights against some of the other biggest stars in boxing history.

En route to becoming the only boxer in history to win twelve world titles in eight different weight divisions, Pacquiao beat Marco Antonio Barrera, Miguel Cotto, Ricky Hatton, Oscar De La Hoya, and a number of other big names.

But one of the Filipino legend’s wildest matches came before he rose to stardom in the ring, as a young Pacquiao threw caution to the wind in a brutal battle that left his opponent much worse for wear…

Manny Pacquiao was described as ‘immature’ by commentators before busting up Sung-Yul Lee’s nose in crazy firefight

On this day, December 28, in 1996, Pacquiao returned to the ring for his seventeenth professional fight. A young prospect at the time, ‘PacMan’ entered his clash with South Korea’s Sung-Yul Lee four victories on from his first boxing loss.

The Filipino was high on confidence after three straight knockouts, and that self-belief was clear when Pacquiao immediately charged at Lee with an onslaught of punches in round one.

While he found success with that approach and began to inflict damage on his opponent, Pacquiao’s strategy was questioned by the two commentators.

“The Korean is just being overwhelmed right now. Pacquiao is showing absolutely no respect for his Korean opponent,” one said.

The other replied, “I tell you, Pacquiao is good, but he is a cocky little fighter…he tends to get wild as a result of that.”

While that assessment saw them predicting that things would backfire in the later rounds of a fight they expected to go close to the full distance, the Filipino proved them wrong.

After coming out from his corner with similar aggression in round two, Pacquiao brutally broke Lee’s nose, resulting in the referee intervening and waving the fight off.

Pacquiao would win his first world title two years later by knocking out Chatchai Sasakul.