World Champion Manny Pacquiao was stunned by former schoolteacher Jeff Horn to win the World Boxing Organisation welterweight crown with a unanimous points decision in Brisbane on Sunday.
29-year-old Horn’s ultra-aggressive style as too much for Pacquiao to handle,as the three judges scoring the fight 117-111, 115-113 and 115-113 to the Australian after 12 rounds.
JEFF Horn did it! One of the most astonishing sportsmen in Australia scored one of the greatest wins in this country’s boxing history by taking Manny Pacquiao’s world welterweight title at Suncorp Stadium today with a 12-round decision.
Pacquiao v Horn: Relive the battle
In a bloodbath of non-stop pulsating action, Horn overpowered and outpunched Pacquiao before a 50,000-strong crowd.
Scores were 117-111, 115-113 twice.
Both men saluted each other throughout the fight for their courage and tenacity.
Horn’s ailing grandfather Ray Horn, 89, battling the flu and the weight of years, is almost blind but he broke into a huge grin sitting beside me behind Horn’s corner when he heard the challenger’s theme song “Seven Nation Army’’ blaring from the loudspeakers.
Horn marching to history stopped briefly to touch fists with the old man whose dream was to see his grandson win the world title.
Pacquiao came into the ring to the sounds of “Eye of the Tiger”.
On Saturday night he had led a bible class where he had prayed for Horn’s safety as he has done for all his opponents in recent years.
Pacquiao should have been more worried about his own safety.
Horn showed no signs of being overawed by the occasion, taking the fight to the Filipino great from the opening bell.
He moved forward relentlessly, not allowing Pacquiao time to find any rhythm. “I feel like he couldn’t get a hold of my gap. I was feinting a lot, trying to upset his rhythm and I think that was working throughout the majority of that fight,” said Horn, who stands three-and-a-half inches (9cm) taller than Pacquiao.
Pacquiao did manage to land some left jabs in the opening rounds to take the early points, but Horn refused to back away and his brawling tactics paid dividends through the middle stages.
“He was quick when he put combinations together but I felt controlling the gap made it easier to see the punches coming,” Horn said.
“The size difference helped too.” Pacquiao, bleeding profusely from cuts high above both eyes caused by accidental head clashes, launched a savage counterattack in the ninth round and appeared to have Horn in trouble with some massive blows that left the Australian staggering.
“The ref came over (at the end of the round) and said ‘show me something or I’ll stop the fight’,” Horn said.
Jeff Horn is now a big name in the world of boxing.
“I thought, ‘hang on, hold your horses, I’m not that bad, I can keep going for sure’.” Horn recovered and came out strongly in the 10th. “That was just my heart that kept me going,” he said.
“He got me with a couple of good shots and I did go backwards more in that round than in any other round in the fight, but I still felt good.
“But I came back in the 10th 11th and 12th.”
Both fighters began to tire in the final stages of a contest fought at a relentless pace, but Horn’s early lead proved too much to peg back as he claimed the biggest win of his career.
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