Jeff Horn announced his retirement from the sport after naming defeating Manny Pacquiao as his greatest career achievement.
In the same vein as when the WBO went through a process that many found hard to digest in the aftermath of Horn’s win, the Aussie still believes the result is valid.
Horn was beaten around the ring for at least eight rounds of the twelve at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane six years ago. The scorecards sent shockwaves through the sport yet again.
The three officials, who should hang their heads in shame, carded 117-111 and 115-113 [twice] for Horn Ramon Cerdan, Chris Flores, and Waleska Roldan, had solid cases to be struck off after the contest.
Nonetheless, Horn is still acting as if he got the better of Pacquiao, which makes his retirement speech hard to digest. The confirmation drew comparisons to Timothy Bradley when he retired.
Horn and Bradley both know they lost. However, they won’t admit it in the public domain as they cling to a better but faux legacy.
Bradley was even inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame this year. The Pacquiao result was a massive part of why he got inducted. In reality, Bradley was dominated by the “Pac-Man” three times.
The Manny Pacquiao victory gives Jeff Horn the chills
However, speaking to Sky News Australia, Horn wasn’t going to let go of the only result on his resume that actually means anything, whether void or not.
“That’s definitely the highlight of my career is when they announce, ‘and new,’” Horn stated on his thieving of the WBO belt. “That gives me chills even saying it now.
“It brings me back to that moment in front of fifty thousand plus spectators here and millions watching worldwide.”
If Jeff Horn had any self-respect in the matter and lived in the real world, he’d readily admit he was lucky. Horn knows he lost by a wide margin against Manny Pacquiao.
The fact the WBO went through at the request of Pacquiao and upheld the decision didn’t help the charade. Many, including WBN, fully expected justice and sanity to prevail.
When announcing its decision, the World Boxing Organization said: “The independent results were tabulated to ascertain clearly the rounds each fighter won using an average scale based on 60, 80, and 100%.
“This was to determine the winner of each round. Three out of the five officials have to agree.
“Upon the analysis, the findings stated that Pacquiao won the third, the eighth, and ninth by 100%. He won the fifth round by 80% and the 11th round by 60%.
“Horn won the first, sixth, and 12th rounds by 100%. Then the second, fourth, and seventh by 80%, and the 10th round by 60.
“From the results, it can be established that Pacquiao won five rounds while Horn won seven rounds.”
Sick to his stomach
Conducting an in-house inquiry and revealing its conclusion without any outside involvement makes the whole case a waste of time.
Pacquiao’s appeal had no independent judgment and would have made the WBO look bad if reversed. Especially after Horn had celebrated with his family and Pacquiao had seemingly moved on.
Furthermore, the WBO’s review gave Horn ammunition to claim victory over Pacquiao. That’s despite the vast majority of people who know anything about the sport would disagree,
“It gives me evidence behind me that I can just use now. Instead of saying I think I won the fight, now a heap of other people – professionally – think I won the fight,” Horn said about the one-sided WBO review that included only people employed by the sanctioning body.
Hopefully, when Horn says those words, ‘I beat Pacquiao,’ it doesn’t make him want to puke up his guts when the words pass his lips.
That hollow and unjust bragging can sometimes do that to a person. Happy retirement, Jeff!
The views expressed in this article are the opinions of experienced boxing writer Phil Jay. Twitter @PhilJWBN. Follow WBN: Facebook, Insta, Twitter.
