By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn (17-0-1, 11 KOs) weighed in at 146.6 pounds on Tuesday for his voluntary title defense against #10 WBO Gary Corcoran (17-1, 7 KOs) this Wednesday on December 13 at the Convention & Exhibition Centre in Brisbane, Australia.
Corcoran weighed in at 146 ½ pounds. The fight will be televised on ESPN in the United States. This fight shapes up to be a nice little mismatch involving a decent champion in Horn fighting a fringe level opponent in Corcoran.
Horn is said to have lost 9 pounds in the last 24 hours before weigh-in. It’s a lot of weight to lose in just 1 day. Horn struggles to make the 147 lb. limit, and he likely should have made the move to the 154lb. division 2 years ago. However, being big for the 147 lb. division gives Horn an advantage that he wouldn’t have if he fought in the division more suited to his body size. At 154, Horn would have to deal with guys like Jermell Charlo, Erislandy Lara and Jarrett Hurd. Those fighters would likely be too good for Horn. But at welterweight, Horn is a good fighter against the guys that he’s been being matched against. Horn hasn’t fought the talented welterweights yet like Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia and Errol Spence Jr. With Horn signed with Top Rank, it’s unclear whether he’ll ever fight any of those guys. Horn’s days of fighting at welterweight are nearing their end anyway. He’ll soon be moving up in weight to the junior middleweight division.
Corcoran is going to have to watch out for Horn’s habit of lowering his head and ramming his opponents. If Horn head-butts Corcoran repeatedly on Wednesday night, we could see a cut stoppage before no time.
Horn is co-promoted by Bob Arum of Top Rank, who will be matching the winner of the fight, which will likely be Horn, against #1 WBO Terence Crawford. Arum also promotes Crawford. The winner of that fight could face Manny Pacquiao. That’s a scenario that Arum is hoping for. Like Horn and Crawford, Arum also promotes Pacquiao. As you can see, Top Rank is well represented in the top 3 spots of the WBO’s 147 lb. division. Besides those 3 fighters, Top Rank also promotes #4 WBO Konstantin in Ponomarev. He figures to be fighting for the WBO welterweight strap before long.
This is a voluntary defense for Horn to get him ready to fight Crawford in early 2018.
Horn, 29, will be making his first defense of his World Boxing Organization title in front of his home fans in Brisbane, Australia. Horn won the WBO belt last July in beating Pacquiao by a questionable 12 round decision in Brisbane, Australia. Pacquiao was willing to fight Horn in his hometown of Australia, and he paid the price in losing a controversial decision. The fight was marred by numerous accidental head-butts by Horn, and lots of roughhouse tactics by him. The referee took hands off approach to controlling the fight, so Horn wasn’t penalized for his rough style of fighting.
Horn tends to put a lot of weight back on after he rehydrates. Against Pacquiao, Horn looked like he belonged in the middleweight division. He was huge for that fight. Pacquiao didn’t rehydrate much, and he looked considerably smaller than Horn.
”It’s always good to get in nice and close to that weight but not go over it, because it can be stressful,” said Horn via Fight News. ”It’s always a struggle. I’ve done this plenty of times before. I feel like I’ll be feeling good tomorrow. I’m going to have good feed tonight and just relax, watch a movie, have a nice sleep, get up and do the business,” said Horn.
Corcoran has fought mostly domestic level opposition in the UK. He stepped up last year to the 154lb. division and was stopped in the 11th round by contender Liam Williams. Corcoran lacked the punching power to compete with Williams on even playing field.
Wednesday’s Horn vs. Corcoran fight is likely to see the hometown fighter Horn winning. Corcoran was picked from near the bottom of the WBO’s rankings for a reason. They want to make sure that there’s little chance that Horn loses the fight before facing Crawford, who Top Rank hopes of turning into a PPV star in the future. Top Rank is going to try and build Crawford on ESPN before they branch out to PPV. The thing that is keeping Crawford from being a PPV star is a lack of quality opposition. Top Rank needs Crawford to be seen beating well-known fighters. You can argue that’s one reason why Arum likely is so interested in matching Pacquiao against Crawford. Horn isn’t a big enough name in the U.S to help Crawford become more popular. He needs recognizable names like Porter, Thurman, Danny Garcia and Spence.
Prediction
Horn should beat Corcoran without any problems. Horn has the size, power and the hometown advantage. I don’t see Horn being able to score a stoppage in this fight due to his lack of punching power. My prediction is Horn winning a bloody, one-sided 12 round unanimous decision. If the fight does get stopped before the distance, it’ll be due to Corcoran being cut up from Horn’s head-butts. Horn has a bad habit of lowering his head and charging forward like a ram. Horn often rams the crowd of his head into the face of his opponent’s. A good fighter will take advantage of Horn’s ramming style of fighting by hitting him with uppercuts. Thus far, the only good fighter Horn has fought is the 38-year-old Pacquiao, who was over-the-hill at the time he fought him. A prime version of Pacquiao would have likely knocked Horn out in 3 or 4 rounds. Horn was almost stopped by Pacquiao in the 9th round last July. The fight should have been over in the 10th if Pacquiao had continued to pummel Horn, but for some reason he backed off and let him survive. Horn is a decent fighter, but I rate him well below the best in the welterweight. I see him as more of a bottom 10 guy rather than a world champion. Horn lucked out with the scoring of his fight with Pacquiao, as he likely would have lost that fight had it taken place in a neutral venue. Even it had gone the distance elsewhere, I think Horn would have lost enough points from his head-butting that he would have lost the fight.