The World Boxing Organisation Confirms Horn Legit Won, So Everyone Shut Up

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Published

July 10, 2017

The combined fury of millions of Americans and Filipinos was enough to compel the World Boxing Organisation to rescore their dramatic Brisbane fight, but they didn’t get the result they wanted. The WBO has issued a statement defending the homegrown Aussie hero’s victory.

The WBO confirmed that they don’t actually have the power to revoke a title or rescore a match unless there has been fraud or a violation of the law, so Pac-heads didn’t have a strong argument to begin with:

The WBO does not have power to reverse the Judges decision based on discretion as it can only be revoked when fraud or a violation of Law has occurred, which is not relevant in this case.

The organisation acknowledged that it was a controversial decision. “The Jeff Horn vs. Manny Pacquiao bout results were controversial causing disputes amongst fans. For this reason, transparency is so important.”

Their analysis basically focuses on how the judges arrived at the final score and the analytical methods that were used. It’s clear they’re not rescoring the match here – they’re just working out whether the judges did the right thing according to WBO standards and their professed analytical methods.

Based on this, five (5) anonymous, competent Judges from different countries were asked to watch the bout without sound.

Then, the independent results were tabulated to ascertain clearly the rounds each fighter won using an average scale based on 60, 80 and 100 per cent. To determine the winner of each round, 3 out of the 5 officials have to be in agreement.

Upon the analysis, the findings stated that Pacquiao won the 3rd, the 8th and 9th by 100%; the 5th round was won by 80%; and the 11th round by 60%. Horn won the 1st, 6th and 12th rounds by 100%; rounds 2nd, 4th, and 7th by 80%; and then, the 10th round by 60%.

From the results, it can be established that Pacquiao won 5 rounds while Horn won 7 rounds.

The next step of the analysis was to combine the Independent Judges with the Bout Judges to find the percentage agreement by round.

Upon doing this analysis, the findings of the Judges stated that Pacquiao won the 3rd and 9th by 100%; the 8th round was won by 87.5%; no rounds were won by 75%; the 5th round by 62.5%; and the 10th and 11th were even rounds.

On the other hand, the Judges findings stated that Horn won the 1st, 6th, and 12th rounds by 100%; by 87.5%, he won the 4th and the 7th; the 2nd was won by 75%; none were won by 62.5%; and the even rounds were the 10th and the 11th.

The analytical method utilised was also used in the decision of Algieri-Provodnikov and Paquiao-Bradley. Based on this analysis, Jeff Horn was the winner of the bout.

See all that up there? That’s a fancy way of saying that the judgement was done in accordance with the rules, so even if you think it was the greatest theft in boxing history by whatever standard you choose to evaluate it, there’s not a whole lot the WBO can do about it.

Horn and Pacquiao are considering a rematch – which was stipulated in the contract should Manny lose – and it’s possible it’ll happen in November. So if you’re hungry for justice on behalf of Manny Pacquiao for whatever reason, you’ve got a shot.

Source: WBO.

Photo: Getty Images.