Photo from Google Images
It’s been four days and I’m still bothered by the Manny Pacquiao controversial “unanimous” decision in front of a crowd of 52 thousand at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane Australia. Jeff Horn is the new WBO Welterweight Champion. Who? Exactly! The 29 year old Australian was a former substitute school teacher and now he thinks he and his high pitched voice can beat Floyd Mayweather. HA!
This one image can sum up of the fight. (Thank you ESPN Stats & Info.) Manny ran circles around Horn when it came to landing punches. Horn, who is sloppy and slow, was a punching bag for Manny.
However, there has still been no explanation if the judges were watching the same fight as the 4.4 million viewers on ESPN. The three judges scored the fight 117-111, 115-113, 115-113 in a unanimous decision and shocked the world. Maybe there was too much sun shining in the eyes of the judges during the outside afternoon fight and they missed most of the flight? The saddest part isn’t even Manny getting screwed, again, it’s how common controversial decisions are becoming in boxing. It’s becoming more difficult to watch or to become a fan.
Boxing as a sport is dying. It doesn’t have the prestige it once did and even with more matches being shown for free (with your ESPN subscription), it’s a sign that viewers will not want to pay to watch the controversy on Pay Per View. For those that say ESPN isn’t free, true. But most cable packages come with ESPN and there are a lot of channels you pay for and may never watch them. Pay Per View is like buying a ticket for only that one event and watching from you home. Bars have to pay thousands to show that one event. Almost every bar in America has ESPN and can it doesn’t cost them any extra to show it to a packed bar.
So when you already have the channel, it’s free as opposed to paying for a one time Pay Per View event. I can promise I’ll never pay to watch Horn fight.
If the world of boxing wants to continue to have a sport once Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao hang up the gloves, they have to find better judges and bigger names. Jeff Horn is not the answer, but he thinks he is. Horn said after the flight that “there (is) always going to be the backlash where people will say I got lucky or whatever, there’s always going to be the naysayers saying I didn’t win the fight. But I felt like I won the fight. I think a lot of Queenslanders think I won the fight and people around the world. So you will always have the select few that will be against you.”
And by select few he means the entire world besides the three judges and the country of Australia.
Going into the fight, the 38-year-old Pacquiao is an 11-time world champion over eight weight divisions and he is currently a senator in the Philippines. He has a record of 59-7-2.
Oh, and this is a picture after the fight… you tell me who won.
