Manny Pacquiao lost his WBO Welterweight title to a relatively unknown opponent in Jeff Horn in one of the worst scored boxing matches in the sports history.
Despite, dominating the Australian for 12 rounds, landing 182 punches to Horn’s 92 with the referee threatening to stop the fight after the 9th because Pacquiao was simply caving in his Australian counterpart’s face, the former Filipino champion was simply fucked in the end.
After the judges turned in a score of 117-111, 115-113, 115-113 all of which went for Horn, Pacquiao lost his title and boxing lost what little credibility it had left.
To further highlight the absurdness of last night’s bout, check out the graphic from Sports Illustrated below. Not only did Pacquiao land more punches, he pretty much dominated every aspect of the fight.
The guy on the right won. pic.twitter.com/nddfFYOZwC
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) July 2, 2017
Yes, Horn was aggressive but incredibly inaccurate which further illustrated just how unpolished the Australian was. At times it seemed like he had his eyes closed and was just throwing punches hoping he would connect on something.
Ironically and unfortunately for Pacquiao this was the second screw job suffered in his career with the first coming in his loss to Timothy Bradley, again another fight he should have won.
In any sense however boxing may have taken the biggest hit at the end of the night. With credibility problems even before the bout judges Walekska Roldan, Chris Flores and Ramon Cerdan may have unplugged the sports ventilator as it continues to dies a slow death.
Sure the Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor fight will succeed on hype alone but after that was exactly does boxing have to look forward too? And at the same time how will Saturday night’s absurd decision help attract new fans to a sport that’s in desperate need of such? If combat sports fans are looking for predetermined outcomes and show based on what occurs outside of the ring they can tune into RAW or Smackdown Live on a weekly basis.
Thankfully no one had to pay to watch last night’s garbage.
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