The July 2 Manny Pacquiao vs. Jeff Horn fight was one of Pac-Man’s hardest defeats, and it may go down as the most controversial decisions of his career. Calls for a review went out immediately after the judges declared Jeff Horn the winner.
Manny Pacquiao smelled foul play soon after and backed the calls for review from Philippine authorities.
The WBO Review
After agreeing to review the scorecard of the fight, the WBO said that it did not have the power to overturn the decision of the judges.
But still they established a panel of 5 judges to review the fight and rescore it; there was no actual point to the whole review, but it pacified some of the harsh criticism coming their way.
- Winner all over again: Jeff Horn defeated Manny Pacquiao both in the ring and on a reappraisal of the match by anonymous judges. Photo: AAP
Results of the Pointless Review
WBO has released the results of the review and backed Jeff Horn as the winner, to no one’s surprise.
The 5 judge panel determined that Pacquiao won only 5 rounds to Jeff Horn’s 7.
The 5 judges were completely anonymous and belonged to different countries. They were asked to watch the fight without sound. 3 out of the 5 judges had to agree on the score of each round for it to count.
WBO called the whole review process ‘transparent’.
- Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports
Rematch?
Jeff Horn has already made his thoughts heard on the result by saying “heap of other people (professionally) think I won the fight”, and he says that he would welcome a rematch with Pac-Man.
Many believe that Pacquiao will retire and he will not claim the rematch clause that was included in the contract of the July 2 bout.
We will have to wait and see how Pacquiao and GAB will move forward after WBO’s decision.
What are your thoughts on the results of the review, do you agree with them? Leave your comments below to let us know what you think about this whole chain of events.
