The Games and Amusement Board (GAB) of the Philippines expressed its appreciation to the World Boxing Organization for acting swiftly on its request to review the welterweight title between Filipino Manny Pacquiao and Australian Jeff Horn.
Horn won that one but a lot of boxing fans around the world were not convinced of the unanimous decision win for Horn.
The WBO, acting on the formal complaints of the GAB, re-scored the fight on Monday (Tuesday in Manila) using a five-man panel of judges and got the same result—victory for Horn.
For GAB chairman Abraham Mitra, however, the results of the review did not matter anymore .
“We are grateful that the WBO acted promptly on our request, but no matter what review they do, it will be hard to change the result as the referee didn’t call it close. The judges’ scores would have greatly changed if the referee did his job properly,” Mitra said in a statement.
In sending the request for review to the WBO, Mitra said he was not expecting a reversal of the outcome , he was hoping for WBO “ to identify possible errors on the part of the referees or judges who officiated the fight.”
Mitra said the referee didn’t have full control of the fight and allowed Horn to employ unsportsmanlike tactics on Pacquiao and never lifted a finger nor gave the Australian even a mere warning.
“He (referee) didn’t give Sen. Manny Pacquiao the respect and fair protection that is due to a people’s champ.”
After the bout on July 2 at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Horn earned a unanimous decision win with one judge scoring with a wide margin of 117-111 while the two others had it with identical 115-113 scores.
In the rescoring made by the WBO on Monday (Tuesday in Manila), three judges scored in favor of Horn (114-113, 114-113 and 115-113) while one judge put it at 114-114 even and another had it 114-113 for Pacquiao.