By Keith Idec

When Michael Buffer read the first score Sunday, most people who watched the Manny Pacquiao-Jeff Horn fight didn’t consider “117-111” to be a good sign for the hometown hero.

Horn, however, didn’t take that to mean he lost their 12-round welterweight title fight at Suncorp Stadium in his native Brisbane, Australia. Thanks to the encouraging words of his trainer/manager, Glenn Rushton, Horn was confident he had been successful enough against the heavily favored Filipino legend to have pulled off an enormous upset.

The 29-year-old Horn (17-0-1, 11 KOs) was ecstatic when Buffer bellowed the words, “And new,” but the previously unknown underdog was far from stunned he had beaten Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KOs).

“I wasn’t really surprised,” Horn said. “I was going back to the corner and [Rushton] was letting me know that I was probably winning the majority of the rounds. But obviously, he’s the champion. He’s gonna edge some close rounds. I was happy that I won the fight. I’m just stoked that I won it, especially unanimously.”

Each of the three judges – New York’s Woleska Roldan (117-111), Argentina’s Ramon Cerdan (115-113) and Arizona’s Chris Flores (115-113) – scored the action-packed fight for Horn.

Following the 10th round, in which Horn came back strong after Pacquiao almost stopped him in the ninth, Horn was ahead on the scorecards of Roldan (97-93) and Cerdan (96-94). Flores had it even (95-95) through 10 rounds.

“Going into the 11th round,” Rushton said, “I said to Jeff, ‘This fight’s close. Either you’re in front or it’s five all. You’re either in front by one round or it’s five all. But it’s close. We really need to bring it home hard here, Jeff.’ And I thought Jeff won the last two rounds, so I was confident we had the fight.

“I thought, ‘We’ve got the fight. There’s not gonna be a lot [of separation] in it. It’s gonna be one or two points, a couple points.’ You know, there’s not gonna be a lot in it. But I was really confident we had done enough to win the fight. And thankfully, the judges saw it the same way I did.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.