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Real Boxing: Manny Pacquiao Guide: 9 Tips, Cheats & Tricks for Winning Your Early Matches

The Real Boxing series is back with a new title that’s currently available for iOS devices as of this writing, and it’s endorsed by one of the greatest fighters of all-time, or at least of modern times – the Philippines’ own Manny Pacquiao. Vivid Games’ Real Boxing: Manny Pacquiao allows you to take part in weekly tournaments that promise unique rewards including real physical gifts, the ability to compete against AI opponents or other human players, and a total of 17 challenges in Manny’s challenge room. While you start out with your own created fighter, you can eventually play as Pacquiao and wear his custom-made boxing gear. But before that, you’ll need to train your fighter and make good use of the perks and power-ups you have at your disposal.

It’s not easy to become as great as Manny Pacquiao has become in the ring – it’s a pretty mean feat, after all, to become an eight-division world champion and a certified legend in the sport of boxing. But we can at least help you get started on the right foot, in this Real Boxing: Manny Pacquiao strategy guide for beginners. We’ve also got another strategy guide in store for more advanced players, but for the meantime, this guide should give you that extra edge in the ring, regardless whether you prefer to dominate the computer, or dominate your fellow human players from around the world.

1. Mix Up Your Punches

The tutorial stage of Real Boxing: Manny Pacquiao will show you the basics of the game – tap left to jab left, tap right to jab right, swipe left or right for a hook, swipe up on the left or up on the right for an uppercut. You’ve also got your block button on the lower left and your clinch and dodge buttons on the lower right; blocking and clinching help you regain stamina and power, though we shall be getting to that later. So now that you’ve been refreshed on the very basics of the game, what should you do in an actual fight?

The most basic tip when fighting, may it be against an AI- or human-controlled opponent, is to mix up your punches. Even the AI fighters aren’t “dumb” in most cases – if they see you’re using the same hand or the same punch way too often, they’ll pick up on that and act accordingly. You don’t want to be too predictable unless you’re up against a much weaker opponent, or one you can easily knock out; rounds are scored based on the number of punches you land and how accurate you are, and getting too predictable is a shortcut to losing the fight on the scorecard.

2. Conserve Your Power, And Don’t Button-Mash

One common refrain we’ll be repeating in this guide is the importance of fighting smartly. And button-mashing (or swiping and tapping randomly in this case), as you may surmise, is the antithesis of smart fighting. It’s essentially throwing a ton of stuff against the proverbial wall and seeing what sticks, and while it sounds like a good shortcut to getting the lead on points, it also drains your punching power big-time.

Underneath your stamina/health bar, you’ll see a smaller yellow bar, and that represents your punching power. The power bar gets drained each time you throw a punch, so if you’re punching like crazy and draining out that power bar, any punch you land won’t do much damage against your opponent. Instead of going all-out offensive, block frequently so you could keep your opponent at bay and recover some of that punching power.

3. Getting A KO Isn’t As Important As You Think

Yes, we get it. Knockouts look cool, and as fun as they are to watch on television, they’re even more fun to pull off in video games. But if you come to think of it, it’s not really that important to knock the other guy out in Real Boxing: Manny Pacquiao. Going for the KO too aggressively often leads to wild, powerless punches, and you may even leave yourself open to a furious combo from the opponent. Fight smartly, go for the KO if your opponent’s stats are considerably lower than yours, but otherwise, you want to fight for the win. As we’ve seen in the early stages, it doesn’t look like you earn any knockout bonuses anyway, so don’t fret too much if you aren’t putting your opponents to sleep like you would have wanted to.

4. About The Counter-Punching Mechanic

In the tutorial, the game will teach you that you can counter-punch by successfully dodging an opponent’s blow, then punching him off the dodge and connecting. That results in three times more damage than usual, and it’s a great way to drain your opponent’s health/stamina and send them to the canvas for a knockdown, or better yet, a knockout. (Yes, we know they don’t earn you extra, but they DO look cool!)

Have it in mind, though, that it’s not a good idea to keep dodging throughout the match in hopes of avoiding attacks and setting up a counter. Dodging also takes its toll on your power bar, and if you dodge unsuccessfully frequently enough, that too could drain the bar, even if you aren’t throwing any punches.

When it comes to throwing the actual counter-punch, it’s important that you control your punch and try not to swing too wildly, otherwise, you’ll only end up wasting the energy you spent dodging in the first place. Look for the spot where your opponent is vulnerable, and act accordingly. Traditionally, uppercuts seem to work best based on our experience – going for a left or right hook often results in a wild swing and a wasted opportunity to triple your damage through counter-punching.

5. Play The Game Every Day For Free Spins And Rewards

Real Boxing: Manny Pacquiao makes sure to reward dedicated gamers, and these come in the form of daily spins at the prize wheel, as well as daily login rewards. For the prize wheel, you can earn yourself goodies such as coins and gold, though like most any other prize wheel in mobile games, this one’s arguably rigged; expect to get the low-value coin rewards more often than not, rather than the gold rewards, which are few and far in-between due to gold being the game’s premium currency.
Daily login rewards may also include coins and gold, but may also include power-ups and stat boosts; make sure you’re logging in at least once a day, even if you don’t get to play, so that you can get more freebies!

6. Watch Ad Videos To Get Goodies

We think it’s really cool that Real Boxing: Manny Pacquiao has more than its fair share of opportunities for players to watch ad videos. Yes, the ad that kicks off the game once you open it may seem like a nuisance, as it doesn’t appear to do anything. But other than that, you can watch ads to do a variety of things, such as get free training sessions (more on training later), get additional stat boosts without paying, and speeding up manual stat improvements. As long as the game’s serving up ads and asking if you want to watch them in exchange for the above things and more, keep watching ‘em. They only last 30 seconds at most anyway, so that’s not much time taken away from your gaming experience.

7. Which Power-Ups Are The Best?

Truth be told, you can win many of the early fights without having to use any of the power-ups your boxer is allowed to use. But the one we find most useful is Iron Fist, which gives your fighter an extra dose of power for a few seconds, possibly allowing you to knock the other guy down if you connect on your punches and activate the power-up at the right time. In this case, you want Iron Fist activated when your power bar is fully charged (or more than halfway charged, at the very least), to ensure you’re getting the most out of it. We suggest using this if you think you’ve got a points deficit after the second round and your only hope is to knock your opponent down, or better yet, knock him out.

8. The Quirks Of Losing

We don’t know if this is a bug with the game or something that’s in there on purpose, to make the game more challenging. But in one of those rare losses, we noticed that the judges ruled a 28-28 draw as a unanimous decision victory for the opponent. Looking at the score alone, 28-all is definitely a draw, but for the sake of this tip, we should let you know that when you lose a match, you don’t get anything – not even a small consolation prize, at least in the early goings of the game.

9. The Basics Of Improving / Training Your Fighter

You can use coins to improve your fighter’s stats, and it’s as easy as manually moving the slider to a certain stat level you want to reach through this manual process. Do not, in any case, pay gold in order to speed up the manual training! The game will typically ask if you want to watch an ad so you can complete the training immediately, and if you’ve got a chance to watch an ad, go take it, just as we told you a couple of tips ago.

There are also training mini-games which you can play, each of them designed to improve each one of your fighter’s stats – Power, Stamina, and Speed. The Power mini-game requires you to match the punch type icon by performing the move with your left or right hand, the Stamina mini-game is all about clinching at the right time, while the Speed mini-game is similar to Power, except that the icons move faster, and it’s all jab icons you have to match with your left or right hand. The game only allows you to train once a day, regardless of the stat, so stay focused during your training sessions so you can get those stat bonuses once the training is done!

Want some more advanced tips and tricks for Real Boxing: Manny Pacquiao? Be sure to head over to our second strategy guide!

Raymundo Rodriguez

Saturday 25th of June 2022

I always get beat Can you help me

Brian Pope

Wednesday 18th of August 2021

I found a secret boxer dressed in all black with a black mask , I took a screenshot of this boxer to prove it. I haven't been able to use him though. Can you please help ? Thank you

Raymundo Rodriguez

Saturday 25th of June 2022

@Brian Pope, so can I get it

Suan Taylor

Sunday 18th of June 2017

Hello like the game alot but was hoping you could possibly work on the multiplayers system ? Im having trouble finding people to go pound for pound with . the whole google thing isnt that great but why not just people that are simply online and divide people up . not cool to put a lightweight against heavyweight. Doesnt look good on my record . oh and the jab man super slow guys sometimes. The guy will cock back to throw and then when a. isay to jab he throws a dam uppercut or a sloppy hook both left ad right hand or a body blow .ive got some" boxing " skills M.P. team ! Need to be able to control my dude 100% i thought oh probly just another cheezy boxing game but no! Finally something worth playing best boxing game out ! Thank you guys for a great game