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I do think Horn's win over Pacquiao was legitimate, and always have. I think salty Pacquiao fans and Teddy Atlas among others worked overtime to poison the well when it came to discussing that fight in order to solidify the perception that it was a robbery when it wasn't. I do think it was poorly refereed and Horn leveraged that to his advantage but that's got nothing to do with the judges.
I also like Crawford, but that said, you look at what Horn's accomplished since getting picked apart by Crawford, or more precisely what he's failed to accomplish, and that has to take the lustre off the win somewhat. Pacquiao's really the only one good win in his career - before that his best win was against Randall Bailey and since losing the title to Crawford his only convincing win was over the shot cadaver of Anthony Mundine. Otherwise it's been one unconvincing majority decision win and two stoppage defeats. You can try and put records out of the picture entirely and assess him on the eyetest, and it's not really any better - his skillset is average at best, and his success came mostly from size and physicality at Welter, and when he foolishly abandoned that by travelling northwards of 150 lds he started to lose not just more frequently, but badly too. You look at all that and it's not hard to conclude that him beating Pacquiao was just a fluke. Pacquiao's having something of a second wind in his career right now, but circa losing to Horn he was looking pretty shopworn, was having an off day, and got beaten by Horn's wrestling more than his boxing ability. Even then, while Horn won more rounds on my card, the rounds that Pacquiao did win he won more convincingly, had Horn hurt and fairly busted up at points, so I can understand why people thought that Pacquiao deserved to win that fight.
I also like Crawford, but that said, you look at what Horn's accomplished since getting picked apart by Crawford, or more precisely what he's failed to accomplish, and that has to take the lustre off the win somewhat. Pacquiao's really the only one good win in his career - before that his best win was against Randall Bailey and since losing the title to Crawford his only convincing win was over the shot cadaver of Anthony Mundine. Otherwise it's been one unconvincing majority decision win and two stoppage defeats. You can try and put records out of the picture entirely and assess him on the eyetest, and it's not really any better - his skillset is average at best, and his success came mostly from size and physicality at Welter, and when he foolishly abandoned that by travelling northwards of 150 lds he started to lose not just more frequently, but badly too. You look at all that and it's not hard to conclude that him beating Pacquiao was just a fluke. Pacquiao's having something of a second wind in his career right now, but circa losing to Horn he was looking pretty shopworn, was having an off day, and got beaten by Horn's wrestling more than his boxing ability. Even then, while Horn won more rounds on my card, the rounds that Pacquiao did win he won more convincingly, had Horn hurt and fairly busted up at points, so I can understand why people thought that Pacquiao deserved to win that fight.
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