07-03-2017, 10:56 AM
If I had a towel, I would've thrown it': Jeff Horn's father wanted fight with Manny Pacquiao stopped
Jeff Horn walks towards the blue corner, starts to wobble and plops down on his stool. Jeff Fenech had said the only way Horn could win this fight against Manny Pacquiao was to turn it into war and with a flurry of punches, headbutts, headlocks and elbows, that's what we have got here at the end of the ninth.
Blood is pouring from the gash above Horn's right eye, the bruise on his cheek below it is turning purple. His head looks like it's been stung by a thousand bees.
His father, Jeff senior, is sitting in the white plastic chairs in the front row. They are worth $5000 a pop and right now he's out of it and he knows what should happen next: they need to stop the fight.
"If I had a towel, I would've thrown it into the ring myself," he said later. "I was really worried. I thought he was out on his feet and I really thought he wasn't coming out for the 10th."
Horn's wife, Jo, is also in the $5000 seats. She is pregnant with the couple's first child, a small revelation Horn makes to the crowd after the fight. "Oh my gosh, Jeffrey," she says to herself. She later describes that ninth round as "terrifying".
That's one way of labelling the ninth. If you were watching ringside, your stomach churned. Time and time again, Horn felt the wrath of Pacquiao's legendary left hand and it was sickening. Each time the bee stung, his head swelled just a little more, became a little redder, his cheek a little bluer. The gash above his eye came from a head clash in the sixth round, but as he tries to walk a straight line to his corner it is gaping.
Sam Banney is in his corner. He walked into same gym on the same day as Horn more than a decade ago. "I've never seen Jeff as wobbly as this," Banney says to himself.
The referee, Mark Nelson, has an idea what should happen, too. "Do you want us to stop the fight?" he asks Horn.
"Don't be ridiculous," says Horn's trainer, Glenn Rushton, interjecting. Then Rushton locks those crazy eyes of his on his fighter and tells him: "You need a strong 10th round and then we are back in business."
Horn went out, got back in 11-time world champion Pacquiao's bloodied face and not only fought strongly as per his trainer's instructions but finds his way back into the fight.
The kid who had been bullied at school as a teenager and took up boxing so he knew how to handle himself had been bullied enough in that ninth round. He held on ... and suddenly we had a new WBO welterweight champion of the world.
Horn celebrates winning the WBO World Welterweight Title Fight at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
Jeff Horn walks towards the blue corner, starts to wobble and plops down on his stool. Jeff Fenech had said the only way Horn could win this fight against Manny Pacquiao was to turn it into war and with a flurry of punches, headbutts, headlocks and elbows, that's what we have got here at the end of the ninth.
Blood is pouring from the gash above Horn's right eye, the bruise on his cheek below it is turning purple. His head looks like it's been stung by a thousand bees.
His father, Jeff senior, is sitting in the white plastic chairs in the front row. They are worth $5000 a pop and right now he's out of it and he knows what should happen next: they need to stop the fight.
"If I had a towel, I would've thrown it into the ring myself," he said later. "I was really worried. I thought he was out on his feet and I really thought he wasn't coming out for the 10th."
Horn's wife, Jo, is also in the $5000 seats. She is pregnant with the couple's first child, a small revelation Horn makes to the crowd after the fight. "Oh my gosh, Jeffrey," she says to herself. She later describes that ninth round as "terrifying".
That's one way of labelling the ninth. If you were watching ringside, your stomach churned. Time and time again, Horn felt the wrath of Pacquiao's legendary left hand and it was sickening. Each time the bee stung, his head swelled just a little more, became a little redder, his cheek a little bluer. The gash above his eye came from a head clash in the sixth round, but as he tries to walk a straight line to his corner it is gaping.
Sam Banney is in his corner. He walked into same gym on the same day as Horn more than a decade ago. "I've never seen Jeff as wobbly as this," Banney says to himself.
The referee, Mark Nelson, has an idea what should happen, too. "Do you want us to stop the fight?" he asks Horn.
"Don't be ridiculous," says Horn's trainer, Glenn Rushton, interjecting. Then Rushton locks those crazy eyes of his on his fighter and tells him: "You need a strong 10th round and then we are back in business."
Horn went out, got back in 11-time world champion Pacquiao's bloodied face and not only fought strongly as per his trainer's instructions but finds his way back into the fight.
The kid who had been bullied at school as a teenager and took up boxing so he knew how to handle himself had been bullied enough in that ninth round. He held on ... and suddenly we had a new WBO welterweight champion of the world.
Horn celebrates winning the WBO World Welterweight Title Fight at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.