Renowned boxers, experts critical of Pacquiao-Barrios outcome
At A Glance
- The booing on the outcome of the Pacquiao-Barrios fight was not only heard inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. It actually even spilled over the social media where enthusiasts, experts and former boxers alike aired their displeasure.
The booing on the outcome of the Pacquiao-Barrios fight was not only heard inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. It actually even spilled over the social media where enthusiasts, experts and former boxers alike aired their displeasure.
At the end of the 12 hard-fought rounds, not a few felt like defending champion Mario Barrios was too tentative and the comebacking 46-year-old Manny Pacquiao did just enough to win the fight.
So it came as a huge shock when the majority draw decision was announced with one judge even scoring a 115-113 count in favor of Barrios while the two saw it 114-114.
Many felt Pacquiao was robbed of a historic win that could have further cemented his boxing legacy. US boxing great Shawn Porter was the first to slam the judges for the decision.
“When you have — I’m just going to say it — incompetent judges that don’t truly understand everything that they see, everything that’s transpiring in the ring, you’re taking a chance on working through another camp, doing everything you can, putting your heart on the line, your life on the line, and then this is the kind of result you get,” Porter said on the Main Event coverage.
Renowned boxing journalist Dan Gabriel took to X to air his frustration of the result which he deemed should have gone the way of Pacquiao.
”A draw. Barrios retains the WBC welterweight title. That’s just absolutely awful. Beyond awful. Complete f***eration.” wrote Gabriel.
DAZN’ s Steven Muehlhausen echoed the same sentiment: “This is where these commissions need to make the judges available to speak after fights. Scores like this are inexcusable when the fight was fairly easy to score.”
Even the Associated Press had Pacquiao winning, 115-113, in its own unofficial tally.
In the Compubox scores, Barrios landed more total punches, 120-101, though most of it came from the sharp jabs to keep Pacquiao from pressing in. The veteran, however, was the more assertive fighter, landing 81 power shots against the champion’s only 75.
The numbers reflected the views of Keith Thurman and Chris Algieri – two fighters who knew Pacquiao from his prime years.
”Super close fight back and forth. Manny shocked me, I didn’t think that he was going to be able to go the 12 round route,” said Algieri.
”It seemed like there were a lot of opportunities for him to take advantage and he just didnt. Manny did a good job utilizing his hand speed, his foot speed. Barrios was fighting with zero swagger with no attitude. As close as that fight, how do you not give it to Manny?,” he added.
For Thurman's part, he hoped to see more from the two fighters – with Barrios being more aggressive than just throwing the jab and Pacquiao getting more conditioned for the fight.
“His jab was really good tonight. I said he needed to make the old man use those legs . He did but Pacquiao, you know he is popping in but he was getting caught a little bit on his way out,“ said Thurman who actually betted on a draw outcome and won.
“I saw Pacquiao not fully Pacquiao. He was trying it. He was doing his muscle memory stuff and he was still catching Mario Barrios a little bit but he couldn't press, press, press and he faded towards the end,“ he added.