By Chris Williams: The World Boxing Organization’s 5 judges have finished re-scoring the Manny Pacquiao vs. Jeff Horn fight from July 1, and they scored the fight for Horn by 115-113, 114-113, and 114-113 for Horn, and one judge scored it 114-113 for Pacquiao.
The final judge scored it 114-114 a draw. The 5 judges saw the Pacquiao-Horn fight WITHOUT SOUND. The judges didn’t hear the cheering that was being done for Horn by the large crowd of 51,000 at the Suncorp Stadium. As such, Horn won the fight in the WBO’s re-scoring for the fight. WBO wasn’t going to reverse the decision of the Pacquiao-Horn results from July 1.
This was just for peace of mind, I suppose. Even if Pacquiao had won with the re-scoring of the 5 judges, the only option he would have is a rematch with Horn. The WBO welterweight title that Pacquiao lost would stay with Horn. Pacquiao was in a tough no-win situation with the re-scoring by the WBO.
There was no point for the WBO to re-score the fight if they weren’t going to do anything about the results of the first fight. If Pacquiao didn’t have a rematch clause and if he wasn’t as popular as he is now, then the WBO’s re-scoring would be more important, because they could potentially order Horn to fight Pacquiao a second time. Pacquiao doesn’t need the WBO’s help in getting a rematch with Horn, as the contract for their July 1 fight had a rematch clause in it. Additionally, Horn is eager to fight Pacquiao again, because it would give him another big payday that he wouldn’t be getting if he fought someone else.
After the independent judges review, It confirms my 1st impression regarding Pac vs Horn. It was a very close fight but Horn won the match
— Paco Valcárcel, Esq. (@PacoValcarcel) July 10, 2017
The decision by the WBO’s 5 judges puts Pacquiao in a tough situation. He now needs to choose what to do with his sagging boxing career. Pacquiao can fight Horn again, which will probably not go well him. The Australia is big guy with size that will always make it tough on the much smaller Pacquiao. As the saying goes, ‘a talented big guy beats a talented small guy.’ Pacquiao doesn’t have to fight Horn again. Pacquiao can ask his promoter Bob Arum to find him someone else to fight.
The money probably won’t be as good for Pacquiao if he fights another opponent. It’s predictable which fighters Arum will offer Pacquiao. Arum will likely give Pacquiao a choice between Terence Crawford or Konstantin Ponomarev. Both guys are with Arum as part of his Top Rank stable. Pacquiao turns them down, I see Arum reaching down into the lower ranks to match Pacquiao against Vasyl Lomachenko or Oscar Valdez. I don’t think it’ll get to that point though. I think Pacquiao will agree to fight Horn again, and if not him, then Crawford.
The reason for the WBO re-scoring the fight was due to Pacquiao wanting it to be reviewed by the sanctioning body, as he felt that he should have won the fight. I saw the fight and I had Horn winning 9 rounds to 3. There was nothing to argue about. Horn was the bigger, stronger and more powerful fighter of the two inside the ring. Yeah, Pacquiao out-landed Horn 2 to 1, but the difference in power between the two fighter’s punch was substantial. Horn reminded me a lot of Saul Canelo Alvarez with the way he looked, fought and the power on his shots. Canelo can be out-landed, as we saw in his fights with Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara, but he still wins based on his power. It was the same thing with Horn. He looked like Canelo. He was too powerful for Pacquiao
There was a blizzard of angry from the boxing media following Horn’s 12 round unanimous decision win over Pacquiao in their fight on July 1 at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia. The judges did a professional job on the night of the fight, scoring it 117-111, 115-113 and 115-113, all in favor of the 29-year-old Horn. I personally agreed with the just that scored it 117-111. He did a fine job of scoring the fight. Horn was hurting Pacquiao with his shots, and landing powerful shots each time he would catch the Filipino star against the ropes Pacquiao may not have understood at the time, but was giving away rounds by letting Horn back him up against the ropes to work him over.
There were a lot of rounds that I was ready to give to Pacquiao until he would back up against the ropes and take heavy shots. Horn was hurting Pacquiao when he had him against the ropes. I hate to say it, but Pacquiao fought a stupid fight and deserved to lose. He wasn’t thinking clearly and fight smart the way that he should have. Horn showed his Olympic credentials by using his brain to outsmart the Filipino star.
The 6th round was a big one for Horn, as he connected with a right hand in the last part of the round that caused Pacquiao’s legs to go to jelly. Pacquiao recovered immediately, but you couldn’t miss how his legs turned to jelly when he was hit by Horn’s right hand.
According to WBO president Francisco ‘Paco’ Valcarcel, the reason for the re-scoring of the Pacquiao vs. Horn fight was “to be able to give the fans certainty of who was the winner of the bout, even though we do not have the power to reverse the decision of the Judges based on discretion and, in this case, we do have a rematch clause on the fight contract.”
If it were me that lost instead of Pacquiao, I would have told the WBO to not even bother re-scoring of the fight. As soon as Valcarcel said that he couldn’t reverse the decision, I’d have moved on and forgotten about the re-scoring.
If Pacquiao wants the money and the chance to redeem himself, he can fight Horn a second time. But Pacquiao needs to beware, it could be worse for him the second time around. Horn is so much bigger than him, and he’ll have the hometown advantage again. There’s already talk of the rematch taking place in Brisbane.