I will speak to Pacquiao about hanging up his gloves: Roach
MANNY Pacquiao’s trainer yesterday advised the Filipino legend to quit boxing after his sensational defeat to unheralded Australian Jeff Horn.
While controversy raged over the scoring of Sunday’s World Boxing Organization welterweight title bout in Brisbane, after all three judges awarded it to the unbeaten Horn, there were doubts whether 38-yearold Pacquiao would return for a possible rematch.
Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach said he would consider advising Pacquiao to retire after a glittering 22-year professional career in which he won world titles at an unprecedented eight weight divisions.
“I’m going to talk to Manny about maybe calling it a day, maybe this is it,” Roach said.
Given no chance by most observers, t he 29-year-old Horn’s ultraaggressive st yle rocked Pacquiao, with the three judges scoring the fight 117-111, 115-113 and 115-113 to the Australian before 51,000 fans at Suncorp Stadium.
Pacquiao, (59-7-2) who insisted on a Brisbane rematch as a clause in his contract for the fight, declared however that he would “absolutely” return for a rematch.
“We have a clause for a rematch. No problem,” Pacquiao said in the ring after the judges’ decision.
But Australian boxing great and three-time world champion Jeff Fenech also called for Pacquiao, who retired briefly last year, to hang up his gloves for good this time.
“If they let Manny fight again, that’s stupid,” Fenech said.
“He should go relax and enjoy the money he has made. He’s got noth- ing to prove. Retire. Jeff fought the right fight and took Manny to places he’d not been before . . . He made it a bit dirty.”
A sense of Pacquiao’s declining powers is that the Philippines senator hasn’t stopped an opponent in eight years.
Roach, however, called for an investigation into the scoring of American judge Waleska Roldan.
She had the bout 117-111 to Horn, giving Pacquiao only three of the 12 rounds, despite Horn finishing the fight badly bruised and with a shut right eye.
Horn ‘out on his feet’
According to CompuBox statistics, Pacquiao landed almost twice as many punches as Horn – 182 to 92. American judge Chris Flores and Argentine Ramon Cerdan both thought it was closer, but Horn had edged the fight 115-113.
“I respect the judges’ decision,” Pacquiao said. “He was much tougher than I expected – much, much tougher.”
Pacquiao told Philippines televi- sion: “We thought that we won this fight.”
However, Top Rank veteran supremo Bob Arum, who was ringside, felt the win was fair. “It could have gone either way,” he said.
“A couple of close rounds, but you can’t argue with the result. I scored a lot of the early rounds for Jeff. Then I had Manny coming back in the middle.
“The 12t h round, Jef f rea lly won. If you give Manny t he 11t h, you have it a draw. You give Jef f t he 11t h, it’s 7-5.”
Horn himself said he deserved the victory. “There will always be a backlash where people say I got lucky, or whatever,” he said yesterday.
“There will always be the naysayers saying I did not win the fight, but I felt like I won the fight. A lot of Queenslanders think I won the fight and people around the world.”
Horn’s father, Jeff Sr, revealed after the fight that he had been ready to throw in the towel after the brutal ninth round.
His son had been battered by Pacquiao and blood was streaming from a nast y cut that opened up over Horn’s right eye.
As American referee Mark Nelson made his way to Horn’s corner to ask them whether they wanted to stop t he fight, Jef f Sr feared t he worst.
“He was dead in the water in round nine, he was gone,” Jeff Sr said.
“I was ver y worried. If I’d had a towel, I may have thrown it myself in t he nint h. I looked at his eyes and I t hought he was out on his feet. I rea lly thought he was in danger of getting hurt in round nine.
“I didn’t expect him to come back like he did in round 10.”