Manny Pacquiao's coach slams Jeff Horn victory

Unfancied Australian Jeff Horn upset Manny Pacquiao by unanimous decision in their WBO welterweight title fight yesterday. Picture / Photosport

Manny Pacquiao's Australian strength and conditioning coach slammed the judges who awarded yesterday's 'Battle of Brisbane' to Jeff Horn as "crazy", saying the unanimous decision should have gone their way.

The Filipino great's career is at the crossroads after losing his WBO welterweight title to Horn in front of a packed Suncorp Stadium.

Pacquiao, who said after the fight that he accepted the judges' call, did not attend his scheduled post-match press conference.

But former heavyweight boxer Justin Fortune, who has been working with Pacquiao since 2002, emerged from a sombre dressing room and made it clear he did not agree with the result.

"The referee was sketchy, the judges were crazy," said Fortune.

"Manny lost the fight, but Jeff Horn looks like a pumpkin. Those scores, that card? It should be the other way around.

"You can make as many excuses as you'd like - it was a shitty referee, shitty judging. But that's boxing.

"You get given a gift sometimes, you get screwed sometimes. But when you come to someone's house, you're supposed to mess them up, never leave it in the judge's hands."

Fortune - who predicted Horn would mentally collapse the moment he walked out to the ring - admitted they underestimated the 29-year-old local hope.

"Jeff fought 100 times better than he'll ever fight again. The kid's got a lot of heart, a lot of balls. We'll see where he goes from there. We knew he would fight nothing like we ever saw him on video, because 50,000 people, it's your home, you'll fight."

Referee Mark Nelson threatened to stop the bout after a brutal ninth round.

"You've had enough. Show me something in this round or I'm stopping the fight," Nelson said to Horn, who appeared out on his feet.

Horn did just that, eventually winning the fight by unanimous decision (115-113, 115-113, 117-111).

But there was never any chance of Horn quitting. He said he didn't even understand why the official had threatened to call time.

"I was more worried about the look on his face. I wasn't actually too bad. I was like, 'Settle down everyone, I'm fine.' I had recovered and settled down by that stage," he said.

In the end, Horn's early lead after a brutal start to the fight proved enough, even as he wilted in the final rounds. The aggression and punishment he dealt in the opening stages built too much of a lead for Pacquiao to haul in.

"That's heart," Horn said of the ninth round. "Getting through that round. Being able to get hit, to get caught with a shot and continue on."

Horn called out Floyd Mayweather Jnr after the fight and declared himself "no joke" to the legions of boxing experts across the world who gave him no chance and mocked his credentials.

A rematch with Pacquiao later in the year - most likely at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne - looks a near-certainty after one of the biggest boxing upsets in recent memory.

Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach tipped that Horn wouldn't last three rounds and bookmakers shunned the former school teacher and 2012 London Olympian, who took up boxing after he was bullied as a teenager.