Saturday night on ESPN, all-time great Manny Pacquiao travels to Brisbane, Australia in front of 60,000 strong to take defend his WBO welterweight title against local prospect Jeff Horn. The fight isn’t necessarily expected to be all that competitive, but the atmosphere should be incredible. The card also features Shane Mosley Jr, Irish sensation Michael Conlan, and a super flyweight title fight. With it being already included in your standard cable subscription, there is no excuse to miss this one.
Even at 38, I honestly don’t know how diminished Manny Pacquiao (59-6-2, 38 KOs) really is. The aura of invincibility that the Filipino icon once held was smashed when Juan Manuel Marquez knocked him out back in 2012, but Marquez is a surefire hall of famer. Nearly everyone would lose to him if they fought him four times. The fight with Mayweather finished Pacquiao off as a huge draw, but no one beats Floyd Mayweather Jr. As great as Marquez has been, Mayweather is even greater.
Those two losses aside, Pacquiao has had a really easy time with top fighters like Brandon Rios, Chris Algieri, Tim Bradley, and Jessie Vargas. These aren’t the absolute top of the division, but they are weren’t far off. It isn’t as if Pacquiao has been pulling off narrow wins either. He has been dominating these fights. They haven’t been close. The general idea in the sport is that Manny Pacquiao is not what he was. While there is almost certainly some truth to that, if you put him in with the elite fighters around his weight like a Keith Thurman or a Terence Crawford, I am not positive he loses those fights.
Jeff Horn (16-0-1, 11 KOs) is not Terence Crawford or Keith Thurman and Manny Pacquiao is almost certainly going to beat him. It is a shame too because this event has made him sort of a punchline with the more casual boxing audience. Yet, boxing nuts like myself have known about Horn for a few years now. He is a know prospect and a quality young fighter. If his career were left to its natural progression, Jeff Horn would probably have earned his way to a title shot in a few more fights.
Horn is a good athlete with very fluid hands. He puts punches together well and can look downright pretty in the ring at times. He also is a decent puncher. He lacks devastating power, but his shots make up for it with sharpness and precision. His downfall here is likely to be his defense. It isn’t catastrophic, but it has repeatedly shown leakiness as he progressed. Horn has been down from hard shots in two of his last three fights, for example, and both those bouts were against shot former contenders, not Manny Pacquiao.
Horn is old for a prospect at 29 and that, plus all this money, probably played a factor in the decision to take this fight. Had he not, three years from now with him 32 and Manny Pacquiao 41, this would probably be a really even fight. It doesn’t look like one right now, however. With all that said, I do feel obligated to note that 38 is notably old for a top welterweight. If Pacquiao doesn’t take this seriously or is old overnight, Horn does have enough talent to make this interesting. I don’t expect the fight to go that way, but I can’t rule it out.
The chief supporting bout pits Filipino IBF super flyweight titlist Jerwin Ancajas (26-1-1, 17 KOs) against Teiru Kinoshita (25-1-1, 8 KOs) of Japan. Ancajas has been a quietly strong champion in what is in my opinion the best division in the sport since upsetting heavily favored American McJoe Arroyo last September. He not only beat Williams, but that fight turned into a bit of a rout by the end of the night. Ancaja’s opponent Kinoshita is not a bad fighter by any means, but he has been fighting extremely soft competition for a couple years now and I don’t like his chances here in his second title opportunity.
Shane Mosley Jr (10-1, 7 KOs) will also be on the show against undefeated Aussie David Touissant (10-0, 8 KOs) over eight rounds. Mosley Jr is not a big time prospect, but a name alone can often get fighters opportunities like this one. I know nothing of Toussaint. It is actually a bit of a shame that this is airing as there is much better fight on this show between top light heavyweight prospect Umar Salamov (19-0, 14 KOs) and 2012 Australian Olympian Damien Hooper (12-1, 8 KOs), but neither are affiliated with Top Rank or known to American audiences so Mosley Jr it is.
Opening the show will be hyper popular Irish Olympian and new Top Rank golden child Michael Conlan (2-0, 2 KOs) facing Australian Jarrett Owen (5-4-3, 2 KOs) over six rounds. Apparently there is a large Irish contingent in Australia and this fight is at least partially driving the ticket sales. You learn something new every day.
When this card was announced, the assumption was that it would be an independent PPV. HBO seemed to be out of the Pacquiao business unless he was fighting an opponent they wanted and Top Rank does very little work with Showtime. Based on that expectation, the fight was panned. No one wants to pay to watch Manny Pacquiao fight Jeff Horn. Recently, however, the script was flipped when it was announced that this card would land live on ESPN. While I would like to see Horn develop a little more and I definitely would like to see Pacquiao in against the top of the division, I no longer have serious complaints. This is a really great ESPN show.
The show will begin at 9 PM Eastern. Joe Tessitore, Teddy Atlas, and Timothy Bradley have the call.
