Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach believes Jeff Horn intentionally used his head in the fight with Manny Pacquiao last weekend in Brisbane.
Pacquiao suffered two severe cuts during his twelve round decision loss to Horn - an outcome that nobody could have predicted.
Horn captured Pacquiao's WBO welterweight championship with scorecards of 115-113, 117-111 and 115-113 at the Suncorp Stadium.
According to Roach, the two cuts that Pacquiao suffered required 17 stitches to close.
Roach felt Horn's style of fighting was very dirty in the contest. The veteran trainer has accused the Australian of intentionally using his head, elbows and other illegal tactics - while never being penalized for the actions.
"He had a very dirty style. Headlocks, pushing a guy down, using his elbows, head butts, and the referee didn’t say nothing about nothing. The only thing (referee Mark Nelson) said to me was ‘Freddie, when a southpaw fights a righty it’s going to happen.’ I said, ‘not when he leads with his head. Those are intentional head butts,’" Roach said to USA Today.
While there were many observers who saw Pacquiao as the rightful winner, many of them also felt that the 38-year-old superstar looked like a shell of the fighter who captured a record eight divisional belts.
Roach points out that Pacquiao has never fought well when dealing with a cut. Roach reflects on the boxer's twelve round decision loss in the first contest with Erik Morales - a loss where Pacquiao claimed that a bad cut had affected his performance. Pacquiao knocked Morales out in the next two fights of their trilogy.
“He doesn’t get a lot of cuts, and when he does cut he panics a little bit,” Roach said. “In between rounds when the referee was talking to him, Manny wanted to have the ring doctor look at them. For a fighter to say that, he knows where he’s at and he wants to know how bad the cut is. The doctor OK’d it, so Manny fought on pretty well. He’s never done well when he’s had those issues, you know, blood in the face. It affects everyone differently.”
2023-10-18 22:37:56
