Now I know that just reading this headline some people are seething right now. They watched the fight on Saturday night between Manny Pacquiao and Jeff Horn and the vast majority of people vocal about this fight seem to be in agreement unilaterally that Manny Pacquiao got the royal snow-job.
The official scorecards read as follows. 115-113, 115-113, and 117-111. The scorecards are eerily similar to another controversial fight 30 years ago between Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler which was scored 115-113, 115-113, 118-110. I personally felt Leonard won that fight, but I understand the plight of those who felt Hagler won. Like in that fight, you have one scorecard that was completely ridiculous. I guess I'll start off with that.
No matter who you thought deserved to win this fight, there is no excuse at all for a 117-111 card period for EITHER fighter. That in and of itself is suspect. Neither guy looked THAT impressive.
Now, when we start to break down the actual punch stats.
You can clearly see the stats right here. Manny Pacquiao bested Jeff Horn in every single category that matters in judging a fight based on numbers. Not posted here is the fact that Pacquiao also had a 10-8 round in the 9th round in which the referee stated to Horn in his corner that if he did not "show him something" that he would stop the fight. Much to his credit, Horn did answer with two solid rounds IMO winning 2 of the last 3.
Before I go further let me just state that Jeff Horn was a game fighter that night. He fought as best as he could. He was aggressive, he came forward, and was willing to trade. He never backed down. He has a bright future ahead of him if he can clean up a lot of things.
He did a LOT of fouling however that no points were taken away from him for doing it. Headbutting, head-locking, punching while holding, elbows, punching behind the head, head-locking and dragging Pacquiao around the ring. At times it looked like an MMA fight in there. It is what it is though.
The point is that short of knocking him out, Manny Pacquiao did everything a fighter is supposed to do according to the rules and yet the judges GAVE the WBO Welterweight title to Jeff Horn. He did not "win" the title, he was "given" the title by the judges. Obviously people were very angry. One person who saw the fight live and was very angry was Teddy Atlas.
He was furious with the outcome as well as Stephen A. Smith back in the ESPN studios. Everyone was flabbergasted by the decision. I will say that it was "interesting" that during one of the later rounds Timothy Bradley (who also was a beneficiary of a screw-job victory over Manny Pacquiao) stated, "I think this fight is a lot closer than people think it is." Very telling whether the outcome was legit or bogus.
He got into a heated debate with Stephen A. Smith over the controversial finish. He agreed with Stephen A. that he thought Pacquiao won, but he felt that Pacquiao looked "old and slow" and that Horn exploited his diminishing skills. He went on to say that he thinks Horn is ready to challenge top contenders in the Welterweight division despite not having a single name on his record of a known fighter before this fight. Stephen A. rebutted that if Pacquiao was so over the hill and that's why he lost, how is this guy Horn going to fair against top-contenders who have bags more talent than Horn does, in their prime? Bradley struggled to find an answer to that. That was another peculiar situation.
After the fight both Manny Pacquiao and Jeff Horn came down to talk to the ringside broadcast crew for Joe Tessitore, Teddy Atlas, and Timothy Bradley.
Teddy Atlas is a savage. This guy just doesn't care and I like that. He looked Jeff Horn right in the eye, in front of millions of people watching and said, "I thought that you LOST the fight." That was just great TV. However there are several things to notice in this picture.
Manny Pacquiao's face looks virtually untouched. He literally looks like he just went for a jog. Remember, this guy is 38 YEARS OLD and everyone doesn't want us to forget that, but after the toughest fight he's been in since his knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez he doesn't look like he was even in a fight. Meanwhile however, Jeff Horn looks like Martin Lawrence after Tommy Hearns got through with him.
I mean scroll back up and look at his face. It's a mess. Here is another picture that was taken LONG after the fight was over.
I mean is that Jeff Horn or Mitch "Blood" Green? Seriously though, the results of what should have been the correct call was pasted all over Horn's face. There is something else that I want you to pay attention to.
Now, you just lost your WBO Welterweight title to a complete nobody. You just got screwed, AGAIN in a title match. Any hopes you had of a rematch with Floyd Mayweather (that YOU say that you want) could have gone up in a puff of smoke....and yet you are siting here and laughing? Now, I know that Manny is a gracious man and does not take these things so seriously.
He says he respects the decision of the judges, that he was glad to give this fight for free (even though if you don't have cable or satellite you couldn't see it so technically it wasn't for free,) and he thanked everyone for coming. That's fine, and good sportsmanship. However, too many other things surrounding this feel suspect to me. RIGHT AWAY Pacquiao talked about how he has a rematch clause in the contract. For someone that normally is very aloof in his comments with one sentence answers, that seemed strange to me. Then I thought about it.
Next month we are going to have the long-awaited Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight and I'm telling people right now, do NOT BE SURPRISED if there is a upset in that fight. Not because of anything McGregor has to offer as he has no business being in the ring with Mayweather, but I smell something REEEAL fishy going on here. That's another conversation however. After that, we have the Golvkin-Alvarez fight. Now we can add Pacquiao-Horn II to the mix. Three major blockbuster fights within a 5-month period. Just think about how much money boxing stand to rake in off of that?
The narrative for Pacquiao-Horn II is simple. All throughout the night we kept hearing from commentators about how Pacquiao hasn't had a knockout in 13 fights. In this fight Pacquiao did everything BUT knock him out, and he still lost. The controversial nature of the loss doesn't tarnish Pacquiao's legacy at all. Most people feel he won and don't hold it against him. In order to re-establish himself and to be assured at getting his title back he MUST knockout Jeff Horn. If he does in spectacular fashion that means Pacquiao is back in the mix, is ready to challenge some of the young lions in the welterweight division or possible go up in weight class to challenge the winner of Golvkin-Alvarez, and/or possibly rematch against Floyd Mayweather.
If he loses AGAIN, then that means Pacquiao can officially pass the torch to Horn and now boxing will have it's new star to bilk money from because regardless on who he fights next, it will be a hot ticket if he is able to dispose of Pacquiao again. So boxing is in a win-win situation no matter what happens in any of these three fights.
So enclosing I would say that "figuratively" Manny Pacquiao was robbed of a victory, but in "reality" I think the fix was in, that he was in on it, and that this whole thing was as scripted as the last WWE PPV. It was just far more entertaining than the current WWE product, but that's a different topic for a different blog.
As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog, and have a great day.