{"id":100007,"date":"2017-04-26T23:18:44","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T03:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=100007"},"modified":"2017-04-26T23:18:44","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T03:18:44","slug":"pacquiao-meets-horn-starts-to-prep-for-battle-of-brisbane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/04\/26\/pacquiao-meets-horn-starts-to-prep-for-battle-of-brisbane\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacquiao meets Horn, starts to prep for ‘Battle of Brisbane’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pacquiao<\/a>
Pacquiao and Horn met for the first time Wednesday at the venue where local promoters are expecting a crowd of 55,000 for the WBO welterweight world title bout. (Photo: Manny Pacquaio\/ Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BRISBANE \u2013Manny Pacquiao has had bigger, more significant fights while compiling world titles in an unprecedented eight divisions.<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old senator from the\u00a0Philippines\u00a0may not have fought in front of a bigger crowd, though, than what promoters are predicting for Pacquiao’s \u201cBattle of Brisbane\u201d on July 2 against Jeff Horn.<\/p>\n

The on-again-off-again fight was confirmed after a rich deal for a Pacquiao-Amir Khan bout in the Middle East fell through.<\/p>\n

Pacquiao and Horn met for the first time Wednesday at the venue where local promoters are expecting a crowd of 55,000 for the WBO welterweight world title bout.<\/p>\n

That, at least according to veteran American promotor Bob Arum, would beat Pacquiao’s biggest live crowd to date \u2013 50,994 at Cowboys Stadium in Texas<\/p>\n

Suncorp Stadium, usually the home ground for the Brisbane Broncos in Australia’s National Rugby League and the annual State-of-Origin rugby league grudge match, has witnessed pretty of brawls, but none of them sanctioned like this one.<\/p>\n

Pacquiao is putting his WBO title on the line against Horn, a trained teacher who took up boxing because he was bullied at high school, had his first professional bout in 2013, and is 16-0-1.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you ask inside my heart, I have confidence to win the fight, but I’m not taking it lightly,\u201d said Pacquiao, who has 11 major world titles and has a record of 59-6-2, with 38 knockouts. \u201cI’m not underestimating him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since losing to Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas in April, 2015, a fight which generated a world record 4.4 million pay-per-view buys, Pacquiao has had two fights \u2013 wins over Tim Bradley and Jessie Vargas on either side of a brief retirement. The win over Vargas in November earned Pacquiao his third reign as the WBO welterweight champion.<\/p>\n

When Pacquiao arrived in Australia, he said he didn’t know a lot about Horn, but knew the 29-year-old Australian had the kind of style that would make for an entertaining fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want an opponent that wants to fight toe-to-toe, throwing a lot of punches, aggressive,\u201d Pacquiao said. \u201cMy style is to throw a lot of punches and I believe that will be very effective for Jeff Horn’s style. That’s why I accepted this fight.<\/p>\n

Arum, who sat beside Pacquiao at the news conference Wednesday and first saw Horn fight in New Zealand last November, compared the bout with a young lion lying in wait to challenge on old one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis fight certainly has that theme,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The packed news conference was a new experience for Horn, who says he’s raw compared with Pacquiao but raring to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s done so much. He’s fought a lot of champions,\u201d Horn said. But, \u201cIf he underestimates me, he’s going to know about it July 2. It’s going to be a very tough fight \u2013 he’s going to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRISBANE \u2013Manny Pacquiao has had bigger, more significant fights while compiling world titles in an unprecedented eight divisions. The 38-year-old …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":100010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[18410,1925,803],"class_list":["post-100007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-battle-of-brisbane","tag-boxing","tag-manny-pacquiao","mauthors-john-pye","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}