By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is waiting to see when Manny Pacquiao will have time off from his senate gig in the Philippines for him to start working on putting together a rematch against fellow Top Rank fighter Jeff Horn.
Arum says the Pacquiao-Horn 2 rematch will likely take place in Australia, which isn’t all that surprising. The Australian school teacher Horn (17-0-1, 11 KOs) is a big draw in Australia, where he packed in a large crowd of over 50,000 boxing fans to see him fight Pacquiao on July 2 last month at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia.
Horn roughed up Pacquiao for 12 rounds to get a close 12 round unanimous decision win. You can argue that Pacquiao made a mistake in agreeing to fight Horn in Australia in the first place. When you give your opponent hometown advantage, you can’t expect any favors from the judges and the referee. You got to earn the victory the hard way. Pacquiao had a hard fight with Horn going MMA on him in using tactics that would likely have led to him losing points if one of the tougher referees were working the fight.
Pacquiao didn’t look like he was mentally prepared for the physical fight that Horn was giving him. Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach should have explained to him in between rounds after the 1st round that he was going to need to make some adjustments to deal with the roughhouse style of fighting that Horn was using.
Pacquiao made zero adjustments during the entire fight. In fact, Pacquiao made it super easy for Horn by backing up against the ropes and letting him maul him. When a fighter is mauling you and ramming you with his head the way that Horn was doing, you don’t want to back up against the ropes. I don’t know why Roach didn’t tell Pacquiao to stay off the ropes. Pacquiao might not have listened to him even if he had told him. There was utter chaos in Pacquiao’s corner with Pacquiao’s assistant trainer Buboy Fernandez seemingly competing with Roach in giving instructions to the Filipino star.
This is all about money. The green stuff for a fight between Pacquiao and Horn comes from Australia, not the U.S. The previous fight between them was televised on free television on ESPN. If it had been on HBO PPV, it’s scary to think of how few buys it would have generated. That’s a not a knock on Pacquiao’s popularity. It has more to do with the race to the bottom type of match-making that’s been done for Pacquiao since 2013. We’ve seen Pacquiao matched against Tim Bradley 3 times when one fight would have been enough. We also have seen Pacquiao put in with Top Rank fighters like Brandon Rios and Jessie Vargas. Pacquiao was even matched against Chris Algieri. The guys that Pacquiao hasn’t been put in with would have likely kept his popularity high. I’m referring to Adrien Broner, Amir Khan, Keith Thurman, Errol Spence, Danny Garcia, Shawn Porter, Mikey Garcia and Terence Crawford.
“We’re trying to figure out when will be the recess (in the Senate, this recess allowing Manny the time to train and then to fight), so we can schedule the fight,” Arum said to the Manila Times. “We have to first find out what dates are available, then we will decide where we are going to hold the rematch but most probably in Australia again.”
If Pacquiao has no choice but to fight in Australia again, then he needs to make a decision whether he feels it’s worth it to deal with another fight where he could get roughed up and he might find himself on the losing end of the judges’ decision at the end of the fight. I had Pacquiao losing to Horn on my scorecard last July, but I’m not a judge. I thought Pacquiao got outworked, especially when he would back up against the ropes and let Horn unload on him. There were a lot of rounds that Pacquiao COULD HAVE won if he didn’t back up against the ropes.
Pacquiao would be doing well for a while, but then he would let Horn back him up and he’d give away the round. That was a mistake. I put the blame on Roach for him not impressing upon Pacquiao the importance of him staying away from the ropes. If Pacquiao had made that one minor adjustment in the fight, then probably would have won. Its small things like that which separates the winners from the losers. Mayweather would never let himself back up against the ropes if he knew that his opponent was going to steal rounds that way. He’d definitely not back up against the ropes if this made it easier for Jeff Horn to head-butt him. Mayweather would be smart about it. Once Mayweather started getting cut from Horn’s head-butts, he wouldn’t have gone back to the ropes. Pacquiao didn’t learn his lesson in the fight. He kept going back to the ropes, and Horn continued to maul and head-butt him for the entire fight. It was pretty sad to see. Roach didn’t seem to have anything useful in the way of instructions in Pacquiao’s corner to help him out.
At his point in Pacquiao’s career, Horn gives him his best chance for a payday. Floyd Mayweather Jr. isn’t going to fight him again. If Pacquiao had kept his career going strong by fighting the best instead of Bradley, Vargas, Algieri and Horn, then maybe a rematch between Mayweather and Pacquiao would make sense. It doesn’t make sense anymore. The match-making hasn’t been there, and I don’t think Pacquiao will ever be a PPV star again.
Pacquiao might want to consider retirement if he doesn’t feel like he can change his game from the last time he fought Horn. If Pacquiao makes the same mistakes in the rematch, he’s going to end up getting roughed up, bloodied and beaten by Horn. This is a young lion that Pacquiao is facing. Horn also is a popular fighter, who brings money to the welterweight division. Horn is the new money man for the welterweight division. He’s the Saul Canelo Alvarez of the 147 lb. division.
Beating a money guy like Horn is very hard to do when it comes to getting a decision. It’s the same with Canelo. He probably deserved losses to against Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara, but he won those fights. Being the A-side definitely helps in boxing in more ways than one, especially when it comes to getting decisions. If Pacquiao isn’t confident that he can knockout Horn this time around, then he should retire unless he needs the money.
If Pacquiao could throw a lot of punches like he did in his fight against Joshua Clottey in 2010, there’s no way that Horn would be able to hang with him. Pacquiao averaged over 100 punches thrown per round for the entire fight. If Pacquiao could do that to Horn, the fight would be over within 6 rounds. We saw what Pacquiao did to Horn when he threw 100 punches in the 9th round alone. Imagine what Pacquiao would do to Horn if he did that for 5 consecutive rounds. I don’t think Horn would be still standing. It would be a great comeback fight for Pacquiao if he could get that kind of performance out of his soon to be 39-year-old body. I just don’t think he can do it. He’ll get tired, and his punch rate will drop off into the 30s, and Horn will end up winning again.