Also one thing people aren't talking about.. Pacquiao's opponents rarely throw more punches than him.. Just something to think about. We just saw Pacquiao on the receiving end of some relentless aggression, which is usually Pacquiao's edge. Horn is sloppy & a spaz but he smothered Pacquiao with aggression. Had he tried to box with Pacquiao, he'd have been KO'd. Horn basically just executed the same game plan Maidana executed against Floyd in the first fight.. Just non-stop attack against someone who clearly outclasses you.
http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Floyd_Mayweather_Jr._vs._Marcos_MaidanaThere's an instance of a boxer being clearly outpunched but winning the decision. Massive edge in efficiency for Mayweather.
Lots of people (especially Pacquiao fans and Floyd "haters") were saying Maidana won that first fight... It definitely wouldn't have been a robbery if Maidana had won it. It was very close. Very similar to this fight between Pac/Horn, but Floyd was much sharper against Maidana than Pac was against Horn.
Dudes. Just saw the fight.
Horn winning that is not at all controversial IMHO. That was nowhere near a robbery like people are saying. That was a brutal, dirty fight. Honestly I had Horn winning 7-5 or a draw 6-6. If you were a judge LIVE at that fight, the aggression of Horn could have easily caused you to give him more rounds than Pacquiao.
Everyone all over the net, including boxing analysts, need to realize Pacquiao barely jabbed and NEVER went to the body. Pacquiao lost that fight himself. You don't box a bull by just throwing straights and hooks.
Pacquiao is an elite fighter & he didn't show it one bit. He showed heart, but not smarts. No jab, no body attack, absolutely horrible strategy by Pacquiao who probably thought there's no way he wouldn't be able to KO Horn.. and it came back to bite him bad.
why pacquiao why?? I was eager to watch him fight then I see this and I start to dislike pacquiao as the rounds progress.
I just do not understand.
mass brainwash into thinking it was controversial decision sprouting from espn. who ever watch espn would think pacquiao won cos of the biased commentary (cough hbo and us broadcasters) I was boxnation so I think it was neutral but then again they may have been biased towards horn, which I didn't sense alot of.
3 judges, 2 from us and 1 from argentina. I would agree with 115-113 to horn.
Completely agree with the "announcers" swaying people. That was a very close fight. One of the announcers (I forget who it was) was keeping it real, he said it was very close.
Pacquiao had a chance to get Horn out of there in the 9th & subsequent rounds, but Horn somehow came right back & stayed in it.. I mean the ref came up to him in the corner and told him he was going to stop it. Horn comes right out and makes it a fight again.
I don't like Horn's style at all.. He's a spaz & he's dirty as fuck. But he has HEART that's for sure. This dude dug deep and keep pushing Pacquiao to his limits.
Hardly controversial IMHO. Calling this a robbery, is an injustice to *REAL* boxing robberies.
True man, you guys are bigger boxing fans than I so definitely expanding my horizons. I just thought that you shouldn't reward an overly aggressive and wild boxer like that when he didn't have the quality to go with it. If he could have done without all the clinching (and not even to defend himself but to throw dirty blows) I would've been much more okay with the decision. Of course Pacquiao isn't at the top of the game anymore but I thought he still was the better boxer and won the fight.
Definitely. The guy who throws more punches shouldn't by default win the fight, but there's lots of different factors that go in to judging each round. Here are the general criteria:
- Effective Aggression
- Ring Generalship
- Defense
- Hard / Clean punches
I wouldn't give either fighter an advantage in 'defense', they both were sloppy.
Overall, i'd give the "ring generalship" to Horn, he pushed Pacquiao for most of the fight. Horn made it ugly & turned it into a war.
Hard/Clean punches go mostly to Pacquiao, but Horn had his fair share of clean shots.. especially the uppercuts.
Effective Aggression is what becomes debatable: Pacquiao was more efficient with his punches, but Horn threw more punches & pushed the pace. It wasn't like Pacquiao was "beautifully countering Horn all night", ie a Matador, like some of the ESPN announcers said he was... He wasn't. Had he been doing so, he would have gotten Horn out of there.
The holding/clinching & butting is definitely a problem.. But, you can't hold it against Horn if you're a judge. The ref never deducted any points from Horn or gave him any hard warnings. Plus, the judges understand head butts happen more frequently when you have Orthodox vs Southpaw fighters. So you can't actually deduct/penalize Horn for any of that if the ref isn't penalizing Horn for it. In fact, Horn's holding on the inside could be seen in the "defense category".. Horn tying Pacquiao up on the inside to prevent Pac from working on the inside.
The thing about the "quality" behind Horn's aggressiveness, is Pacquiao wasn't able to really punish Horn for his lack of quality. A prime Pacquiao, or a Pacquiao with a better game plan, would have been able to do it. Pacquiao should have unleashed a relentless body attack on Horn, when Horn came in sloppy. He should have always "froze" Horn with the jab. So Horn's lack of quality was met with a nearly equal lack of a quality response from Pacquiao. To me, it seemed like Pacquiao was head hunting/KO hunting, fully confident that he would be able to get Horn out of there as Horn wore down or just catch him with something big, but he was in a war & Horn smothered most of Pacquiao's shots by being so relentless/sloppy/bouncing around like a nut case.
So yea, people have different opinions on it.. I'm just giving you mine (which seems to echo seifullaah's).