I'm almost positive he said this about Agassi.
That's wrong, Mac said that about Becker, not Agassi. As did a number of players in the 80s. Becker shook up the tennisworld far more in 1985 than Agassi in 1988. He hit much harder than Agassi on all shots, Agassi just hit harder more consistently, because Becker wasn't a baseliner & the ball wasn't in play as much. And Becker sure as hell didn't need a sitter to unload. I think its obvious that Becker has quite a bit more natural strength than Agassi. Mac commented that no one had ever hit the ball harder than Becker in 1985. He never said anything of the sort about Agassi. check out your copy of mac's book to confirm.
Even Lendl, considered a power player, was freaked out by Becker's power & said so(check out the 1986 W final with 18 year old Becker manhandling #1 Lendl)I have almost every issue of tennis magazine in the 80s, there was far more talk all around about Becker than Agassi, He was the true new breed, something that tennis had never seen. Mac went off on the racquets when Becker won Wimbledon as did many players. There were discussions about ways to change the game, surfaces, rules. People were freaking out because of Becker all through the tennisworld. lendl said many times of becker, "he just has more power than me" never said that about agassi. wilander also said the same(five o's link with wilander helps put into perspective how different becker was to anyone else. agassi, however powerfull, still played a game with many rallies, so it wasn't quite as earth shattering as becker just completely overpowering guys from the 1st strike)
becker was sampras before sampras. there's a reason more players tried to emulate agassi than sampras or becker. its an easier type of play to learn. you can learn to swing out with much larger racquets with topspin, even if you are a little guy. its hard for a junior to learn how to be 6'1/6'3 & be blessed with so much natural strength/atheticism & a roger clemens type arm that you can just go for winners all the time from all areas of the court & not care if you make a ton of errors, because you know you'll make enough winners in the long run.
and as far as "relative power" to peers go, becker wasn't static either. he hit harder than sampras during their meetings from 1994-1996(higher mph on the serve) he was clearly still one of the biggest hitters on tour when he retired in 1997, when the game had changed so much since 1985. I wish the tennis channel just put that becker-sampras masters final from 1996 on a loop, I have a feeling it would open quite a few eyes here.
BTW, the way people use clips of random points to prove whatever is rather silly. A tennis match consists of 100s of points, not sure how you can really see it in black & white terms. There are so many factors in why a match may look faster or slower than another. I have the 1980 W final from both BBC & NBC. The NBC feed is like watching a completely different match, camera is close to the players you can see how fast they(wow at Borg) are & a microphone on court makes the pace of shot sound so fast, while the BBC feed is flat & makes them look like dinosaurs(no mike on court). watching their serves from a close angle is impressive, they were hitting world class shots with ridiculously small frames.
also, I'd advise watching the entire Muster-Kafelnikov SF, the entire Buruguera-Chang SF & the entire Muster-Chang F from Roland Garros before coming to concusions on "pace" of the game back then. Certain players play a different way & that affects the way the other plays, & their strategy. Chang gets so much flack on these boards from a few clips, its absurd. If Kafelnikov & Muster look like their teeing off the ball in the semis in 1995 & a match a few days later looks considerably slower, what does that mean? did the a game take a few steps back in a few days? the same thing happens today, but we aren't microanalyzing every match. Watch Hewitt-Murray one day & Federer-Safin another, its night & day, but they are still playing the same game, in terms of pro level. wonder what you'd think of muster-bruguera & muster-becker matches on clay I have. They certainly weren't holding back at all. chang couldn't generate the same racquet speed of nearly any of his contemporaries so he always looked slower, pacewise. was still able to hold his own though. hewitt's racquet head speed is quite slow as well. fortunately he isn't a midget like chang(guy was 5'6, not his listing of 5'9 on the atp site) like I said, if sampras-becker circa 1996 looked as modern as any tennis today, pace-wise, maybe chang was a bit more modern as well since he beat both becker & sampras around that time?
you should try to find match point of the '93 FO final, I don't think I've seen a better match point with a player absolutely unloading on the ball with no hesitation(courier) at the end of a close 5 setter. it probably wouldn't help your point though.
was just watching laver-connors from 1975. guys were crushing the ball(guess what,there were mikes on court & great angles) too bad its not on youtube.
and connors did rip the return. he was doing it at at time when 3 of the majors were on grass, & with a even more antiquated racquet than wood racquets, so he was no joke.