By Chris Williams: Gary ‘Hellraiser’ Corcoran (17-1, 7 KOs) says he’s ready to beat undefeated WBO welterweight champion Jeff ‘The Hornet” Horn (17-0-1, 11 KOs) on December 13 at the Convention & Exhibition Centre in Brisbane, Australia.
#10 WBO Corcoran isn’t supposed to win the fight. He was selected by Horn’s promoters at Top Rank and Duco Events as a safe voluntary challenger. If they wanted a guy that was tough and potentially good enough to beat Horn, they would have selected Lucas Matthysse or Bradley Skeete. But as bad as Horn looked in his last fight against past his prime 38-year-old Manny Pacquiao, Horn could very well lose to Corcoran.
Horn’s entire game seemed to be centered on roughing up Pacquiao by ramming into him repeatedly with his head, shoving and using a lot of headlocks. It was a really dirty fight by Horn, who was lucky not to be penalized. The referee took a hands-off approach to the fight, and merely watched the fouling by Horn without doing anything to stop the behavior.
“I’m very confident that I’ll do a job on Jeff Horn. He beat Pacquiao when he was at the end of his career. I’m going to beat him!” said the 27-year-old Corcoran to BoxNation Podcast.
Corcoran is right about Horn beating Pacquiao at the end of his career. Had Pacquiao been 3 to 5 years younger, Horn would have been in deep trouble. It wouldn’t have mattered if Horn was fouling like mad. A prime Pacquiao would have likely knocked him out in the first 5 rounds. Horn came close to being knocked out in the 9th round anyway, when Pacquiao opened up on his with a high number of left hands to the head. Horn just barely escaped being knocked out. At the end of the round, Horn’s face was bruised and he looked beaten.
Pacquiao let Horn off the hook by not going after him in the 10th, 11th and 12th rounds. Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach was begging him to give him one more round like the 9th, and he’d have Horn out of there. Pacquiao wouldn’t do it. He backed off in the 10th, and let Horn back into the fight. Horn then pounded Pacquiao in the final 3 rounds, and was given the win.
Pacquiao wanted a rematch with Horn this year, but his senatorial duties in the Philippines didn’t allow him the time needed for him to take the fight. The sad part about that is Pacquiao likely won’t be able to face Horn while he’s still the WBO welterweight champion. Horn’s promoter Bob Arum wants to match Terence Crawford against Horn in early 2018. Horn is probably going to lose to Crawford. So, if Pacquiao still wants to fight Horn, it’ll be after he’s been beaten by Crawford.
“He’s there to be beat. I was looking at him a few weeks ago and he’s very beatable for a World Title,” said Corcoran about Horn. ”I was happy to get the fight, there are big things ahead.”
Horn’s only real win on his resume is Pacquiao, and he basically got a gift decision in that fight after getting away with murder in terms of fouling. That wasn’t a boxing match. That was an MMA fight. Horn was roughing Pacquiao up for 12 rounds while he referee stood and watch, doing nothing to stop the fouling. Corcoran can expect the same treatment from Horn. That’s how the Australian fights. The match will be in Brisbane, Australia, and that puts Corcoran at a huge disadvantage. It means he’s going to need to fight extremely hard if he wants to win this fight because he’s going to likely be roughed up badly.
If Corcoran can beat Horn, he can put himself in position for unification fights. Corcoran isn’t with Top Rank, so he’ll likely have no problems fighting the other champions at 147. If Horn wins, he’s got limited options mostly narrowed down to guys like Pacquiao, Crawford and Konstantin Ponomarev.
“I’m not looking ahead of this, but Horn is! He’s talking about more fights,” said Corcoran. “I’m just looking to beat him up and then see what happens after.”
Horn will probably fight Crawford. He’s next up in the World Boxing Organization ranking at 147. There’s no way of knowing for sure if Crawford will be the same fighter at 147 as he was at 140. I think Crawford will do well at 147, but not quite as good as he was at 140. Crawford will be fighting bigger guys with better power at welterweight. Crawford has enough boxing skills to defeat Horn easily.
“My family’s coming, a lot of people are coming. You might find a lot of travelers over there, you might find the Barmy army,” said Corcoran.
Corcoran is going to need a lot of his boxing fans, because Horn will have a huge crowd once again cheering him on. The judges were giving Horn a lot of the rounds against Pacquiao that he appeared to lose. The worst thing that can happen to Corcoran is if the judges ignore everything he does and just give rounds to Horn repeatedly. If that’s how the judges score the fight, it’s going to be next to impossible for Corcoran to win the fight other than by knocking Horn out. Corcoran isn’t a big puncher, so he’s probably not going to be able to get a KO.