WHILE his unanimous decision victory over Manny Pacquiao has stoked plenty of online debate, new WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn insists he was always confident he’d get the decision. “I wasn’t really surprised. I was going back to the corner and the guys were letting me know that I was probably winning the majority of the rounds. But obviously he’s the champion, he’s going to edge some close rounds. I was happy that I won the fight. I was just stoked that I won it, especially unanimously,” the Australian said.
“It feels amazing,” Horn continued. “I feel like a winner.”
“He was quick when he put the combinations together but I felt controlling that gap, that distance, it really made it a lot easier to see his punches coming and I could step back and dodge a few of them and then counter him with my own. That aspect, which is just the size difference of the both of us, was a big advantage,” he explained. “I was feinting a lot trying to upset his rhythm and that was working a lot through the majority of that fight.”
Horn admits Pacquiao hurt him in ninth round, but he got through it despite the referee’s concern. “My heart just kept me going. He got me with a couple of good shots in that round, I did go back more in that round than any other round in the fight,” he said. “But I came back in the 10th, 11th and 12th.”
Aside from a Pacquiao rematch, he is looking at other welterweight champions like Errol Spence and Keith Thurman. “Unifying the titles eventually is what you want. You want to be the number one world champion,” Horn concluded. “If that’s unifying the titles against those guys in the future, then so be it.”
