If Manny Pacquiao is to fight a rematch with newly crowned WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn, he says he wants a “fair deal” for both of the fighters when it comes to the officials. Pacquiao lost a controversial 12 round unanimous decision to the 29-year-old Horn last Saturday night at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia. It looked to some that Pacquiao the opposite of a fair deal.
The loss for Pacquiao was an unpopular one with a lot of the boxing fans. Never the less, many people did think Pacquiao deserved the defeat. Pacquiao lost his WBO 147lb title to Horn. It was a tough defeat for Pacquiao, because it was a fight that he appeared to have in the bag in the 9th round after he had Horn hurt.
Pacquiao was fighting well when he was throwing a lot of shots in the 9th. He changed tactics in the 10th and started loading up on his shots looking for a one-punch knockout. That was not a good thing for Pacquiao to do. Pacquiao says he would fight differently in rematch with Pacquiao.
“I would not focus on a knockout, but I would rain a lot of punches,” said Pacquiao via sports.inquirer.net.
Pacquiao says he tried for a knockout by landing big shots, when all he needed to do was continue to hit Horn with a lot of punches. Pacquiao threw over 1000 punches in his fights with Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito. That’s what he needed to do against Horn. Pacquiao threw 625 punches in the fight. If he’d let his hands go with another 400 shots to get him to 1000 punches thrown in the fight, he would have beaten Horn.
There’s no question. The judges wouldn’t have been able to ignore Pacquiao throwing 1000 punches in the fight. I don’t know that Horn would have been able to stand up to Pacquiao with him throwing that many punches. Another 400 shots is a significant number, especially when you realize that Pacquiao connected on 32% of his shots. Horn’s face was badly swollen and cut from the 625 shots Pacquiao threw.
That would be a smart thing for Pacquiao to do if he does fight Horn again. However, Pacquiao’s contract with Top Rank reportedly expired with his fight against Horn. For a rematch, Pacquiao might need to re-sign with Top Rank. There’s also the question of Pacquiao’s purse. He made $10 million for the Horn fight last Saturday. A rematch will likely see Pacquiao’s purse drop from what he made last time. Horn is now the champion, not Pacquiao.
The victory for Horn increased his popularity in Australia. Horn’s popularity might not have been increased significantly outside of Australia due to questionable decision and the way that he roughed Pacquiao up with headlocks and head-butting. It looked like Horn mugged Pacquiao last Saturday rather than beating him.
The referee Mark Nelson was there in body but he wasn’t do much of anything to control the fouling that Horn was doing during the fight. Pacquiao was out there on his own without much help from the referee. Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach should have complained to the referee. A lot of trainers would have said something to the referee to get him to control Horn’s roughing up of Pacquiao.
“I’d make sure that I get competent officials,” said Pacquiao. “What I want is a fair deal for both fighters. If I lose, I lose. If I win, I win. That’s what I want.”
Pacquiao should think hard before he chooses to fight Horn again. Pacquiao already beat Horn in the minds of a lot of boxing fans. It wasn’t the Pacquiao that we knew years ago, but he still appeared to do enough to deserve the victory. A rematch between Pacquiao and Horn will be the same kind of fight as the first one. Horn now knows that it pays off for him to rough Pacquiao up. Horn will go back to the same game plan and look to pound out another close 12 round decision.
Pacquiao might not be in the position to get his way when it comes to getting “competent officials” for the rematch with Horn. The fight is going to be in Brisbane once again. Horn is now the WBO champion, and he’ll have the home advantage. Pacquiao will likely need to take what he can get when it comes to the officials. If Pacquiao wants the rematch, he might not have a say so in which officials work the fight.
Given that Pacquiao probably should have won last time, I don’t see much more he can do for him to get the victory than what he already did. Without good judges and a quality referee, Pacquiao will be doing back into the lion’s den for another dose of 12 rounds of being roughed up by Horn. The one thing that Horn did well was roughing up Pacquiao. It would have been a different fight if the referee had stopped Horn from charging forward with his head down like a stampeding bull.
The referee should have penalized Horn for the head-butts, especially after he opened up 2 cuts on the head of Pacquiao. The headlocks that Horn was putting Pacquiao in were another thing that the referee should have stopped. On a couple of occasions, Horn appeared to shove Pacquiao roughly.
It looked like Horn’s game plan was to rough Pacquiao up, and it worked because the referee didn’t stop him from doing that. Pacquiao could have done the same thing by head-butting Horn, and putting him in headlocks too, but it would have been harder for Pacquiao because he appeared to be the much smaller fighter. ESPN didn’t reveal the weights of the two fighters on fight night, but the 5’9” Horn sure looked a lot heavier and taller than the 5’6” Pacquiao.
Pacquiao landed 182 of 625 punches compared to Horn landing 92 of 573, according to CompuBox.
Pacquiao-Horn brought in big ratings on ESPN, showing that Pacquiao is still a big star in boxing. Those ratings didn’t come from Horn, who was a complete unknown in the U.S before last Saturday. Those ratings came from Pacquiao. If you take Pacquiao out of the equation and have Horn fight on ESPN in his next fight, he’ll likely bring in poor ratings unless he’s matched against a big name like Pacquiao, Keith Thurman, Adrien Broner or Danny Garcia.
Part of me would like to see Pacquiao fight someone else in his next fight rather than facing Horn in Brisbane, Australia. I don’t think Pacquiao needs another fight with Horn. He already proved that he’s the better fighter. He might not have proven it to the 3 judges assigned to the fight, but he sure proved it to the boxing fans as a whole that saw that fight.
Pacquiao could do better if he fought someone else. If Pacquiao has to re-up with Top Rank in order to take the rematch with Horn, then he needs to think hard and make a decision whether that’s what he wants to do. If Pacquiao’s contract with Top Rank is done, then he can probably make good money with another promoter, and get important fights against Errol Spence, Keith Thurman, Amir Khan or Adrien Broner. I think those fights would interest a lot of boxing fans in the States. Pacquiao would be the A-side fighting them, and he wouldn’t have to worry about fighting in front of a hostile crowd.