Manny Pacquiao was not overly impressed with the ability of unbeaten Jeff Horn.
This past weekend, Pacquiao dropped a twelve round unanimous decision in a bout billed as the Battle of Brisbane in front of more than 51,000 people at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
Pacquiao's long-time trainer Freddie Roach predicted the fight would be short and sweet but Horn — unbeaten in his 17 previous professional fights — applied pressure by winning some of the early rounds and giving Pacquiao some issues in the later rounds.
Pacquiao had Horn in serious trouble during the ninth round, but he was unable to finish him off. Horn had recovered by the tenth, as Pacquiao appeared to have punched himself out.
After the smoke had cleared, the judges scored the fight 117-111, 115-113 and 115-113.
Horn can't see Pacquiao retiring any time soon.
"I'm sure he'll want to come back. It was a close decision and I'm sure he'll want to come back and prove himself," Horn said.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said there was a clause for a rematch, but he'd give it time before talking to Pacquiao about it.
Pacquiao, who entered the fight with a record of 59-6-2, 38 knockouts, was defending the WBO title he won on points against Jessie Vargas last November.
The Filipino superstar was not blown away by Horn's style of fighting. He says Horn is very dirty, and uses his head and elbows quite often, but that doesn't really bother the veteran. He was more bothered by the referee, Mark Nelson, for failing to get control of the fight.
"[Horn is] not really good but he's really strong," Pacquiao said. "There is no problem with the style of Jeff Horn if he plays dirty, because there is a referee."
"The problem here is that the referee, I don't know if he did it deliberately or he just did not have experience, he just allowed it and did not even give any warning for how many times. It's as if the referee wanted to help my opponent."