Manny Pacquiao Says Ronda Rousey Would Beat Floyd Mayweather

It’s hardly an insult when you really think about it, but when Manny Pacquiao said that UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey would beat his May 2 opponent Floyd “Money” Mayweather, you knew it was going to ruffle some feathers.

Rousey put Cat Zingano away with an armbar two weeks ago in just 14 seconds. Since then everybody has been scrambling to put together pie-in-the-sky matchups for the undefeated UFC superstar. First Joe Rogan claimed that Rousey “might beat 50 percent” of the male 135-pound division. Then Laila Ali said she’d have no problem putting Rousey away, an assertion Rousey met with a “bring it on.”

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Which brings us to yesterday when Pacquiao was asked by ESPN’s Jemele Hill whether Rousey could beat Mayweather.

“I believe so,” Pacquiao said. “She’s strong, strong enough to beat Floyd Mayweather in MMA.”

Really, it’s more about the age-old debate between the merits of boxing in comparison to mixed martial arts than anything else, but it also served as a verbal shot to Mayweather. Pacquiao saying Mayweather would be beaten up by a girl is just an attempt to get in his head and sell more pay-per-view buys for their May 2 fight.

However, for what it’s worth, Rousey has already gone on record as saying she disagrees with males fighting females in any capacity.

“I don’t think it’s a great idea to have a man hitting a woman on television,” Rousey told the Beast. “I’ll never say that I’ll lose, but you could have a girl getting totally beat up on TV by a guy — which is a bad image to put across. With all the football [domestic violence] stuff that’s been happening, not a good idea. It’s fun to theorize about and talk about, but it’s something that’s much better in theory than fact.”

The UFC has yet to announce Rousey’s opponent, while Sports Interaction has Floyd Mayweather as a -227 favorite to keep his undefeated record intact against Manny Pacquiao (+175).