Jeff Horn’s career could have derailed, after win over Michael Zerafa it is back on track
After his famous win over Manny Pacquiao, Jeff Horn had the world at his feet. But just over two years on and his career appeared on the verge of being over until he decked Michael Zerafa.
Boxing/MMA
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In the seasonal spirit of giving, Jeff Horn and Michael Zerafa gave each other plenty on Wednesday night.
Horn busted his right eye in the first round and it took a craftsman’s effort from his cut-man to stop it ending the fight prematurely.
Both men finished the fight splattered in blood and it took just a dash of romantic licence to see they were really covered in glory.
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Horn fought himself back into relevance on Wednesday. He is once again the most commanding fighter in Australian boxing, pushing past the claims of Tim Tszyu.
It ended two years of bad decisions from Horn and those around him, poor decisions that might have cost him the best earning years of his career.
It began when American boxing promoter Bob Arum lost his grip on the WBO welterweight title in 2017, that magic night in Brisbane when Horn rattled the belt loose from Manny Pacquiao.
The world opened for Horn that afternoon. He had world presence.
Arum could peel a pear in your pocket and you would never know. Caught in a lie while promoting Sugar Ray Leonard’s welterweight defence against Larry Bonds back in the early ‘80s, a sportswriter said, “But Bob, yesterday you told me the opposite.”
“Yesterday I was lying,” Arum said, “today I’m telling the truth.”
It will be chiseled on Arum’s headstone one day.
Horn cost Arum a good fortune by taking the belt from Pacquiao.
Arum immediately began working to make it right. He had Terence Crawford rise to the No.1 ranking and in time for Horn’s mandatory defence once he punched past Gary Corcoran.
Then it began.
Crawford got injured in training. Officially it was a “bruised hand”, hard to prove, but it delayed the fight.
Faking injuries to delay a fight is a common practice. Tricky trainers and even promoters employ it against fighters who can struggle to make weight, as it throws out the timing of their weight cut, affecting their preparation.
Horn pushed forward, and great insults were delivered.
Crawford got top billing on all promotion. Horn got a modest one bedroom suite in Las Vegas while Crawford got the multi-level penthouse, with a billiard table and a spa and even its own conference room.
Crawford got to wear the horsehair gloves he wanted, which Horn resisted because of their propensity to cut.
Come the morning of the weigh-in Horn asked for calibrated scales to check his weight and he weighed in right on the welterweight limit. But he weighed heavy at the official weigh-in and needed to leave and sweat the water out by skipping and laying in a hot bath, further draining his body, to finally make weight.
The calibrated scales were wrong. Jeff Fenech called it “a trick” from the Crawford camp.
By then the greatest sin already sat with Horn’s trainer, Glenn Rushton.
Horn should never have been there.
When Fenech was not even six months into his professional career many years ago, Bill Mordey, this country’s greatest promoter, called Fenech’s trainer Johnny Lewis and told him he had Fenech a world title fight.
Lewis told him he was mad. Fenech wasn’t ready for a world title this early.
Mordey insisted, though, and finally Lewis told Bill to send him video of the last three fights of the champion, the Japanese lefty Satoshi Shingaki.
Lewis looked at the fight and called Mordey.
“Mate, bring him tomorrow,” he said.
Trainers can’t get lost in dreamy ambition. Their job is the welfare of their fighter, which begins with knowing when they can win a fight and when the job is just too big.
Lewis knew Fenech was too much for Shingaki, even at that early stage.
Horn is game and talented but he was never going to beat Crawford so long as Crawford has a left hand and a right hand and one good leg. It was Rushton’s job to know that.
Rushton not only didn’t spot that, he spoke with empty bravado, the collective “we” used so often in boxing, and so sent Horn into a fight he could never win.
Rushton should have recognised this and told promoter Lonergan so they could have changed the narrative. With a slight twist and a wink they could have further strengthened Horn’s growing bond with the Australian public.
As the fight over the gloves and the fake injury went on and all those games were being played, to disrupt Horn, his camp should have told Arum to shove his trickery up his backside, that he wasn’t going to be robbed out of a title by some American shonk, and dropped the belt and moved up to super-welterweight.
He would have avoided Crawford, remained undefeated, and moved into the division he was heading towards anyway.
Instead Rushton promised a game plan Horn was no hope of delivering because Crawford was another level up.
It was so comprehensive a beating you could not edit 30 seconds of vision to try show Horn was even a chance in the fight.
A nothing win against Anthony Mundine afterward and then a loss to Zerafa in August, which ended any chance of a title fight this month against Japan’s Ryota Murata, had him teetering. His future was behind him.
Until Wednesday.
Lonergan is negotiating now for Horn to fight Tszyu next, a three-fight deal they believe could be worth as much as $18 million.
At the same time Horn distanced himself from a third fight with Zerafa when, after the heroics of Wednesday night, to most it seemed a natural.
Both men were brave and honest and deserving on Wednesday. There was just enough controversy to justify, at one fight each, a decider.
Zerafa has a legitimate complaint over referee John Cauchi stopping the fight to have the doctor examine Horn’s eye in the ninth round.
Horn was never more vulnerable than at that moment in the fight. The eye was no worse than it was a round or two rounds earlier.
Horn was so vulnerable that midway through the round Rushton can be seen in the corner reaching across and taking the towel from one of his cornermen.
Rushton, who still doesn’t get it, said later he had to stop his corner from throwing in the towel to save Horn and tried to position it as a smart call in light of the first fight controversy, when he failed to stop the fight earlier and save Horn from damage.
He had no idea Cauchi was going to call time, which gave Horn enough time to recover just enough strength to keep going and even, somehow, put Zerafa down with a flush right hand later in the round.
It was the saving point in a career that until that moment looked over.
Jeff Horn saved it, himself, and there is nobody more deserving.