Horn ignores distractions, ready to rumble

Sub Lead11-Dec-17by John J. Raspanti

By Anthony Cocks

Horn

At the start of the year he was a virtual unknown but after a high-profile win against international superstar Manny Pacquiao in front of his home crowd of more than 51,000 fans at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane in July, newly-minted WBO welterweight kingpin Jeff “The Hornet” Horn 17-0-1 (11) has become hot property.

The softly spoken 29-year-old former schoolteacher, who is scheduled to make his first title defence against Gary Corcoran 17-1 (7) at the Brisbane Convention & Entertainment Centre this Wednesday, has been in high demand since shocking the world with his twelve round points win over Pacquiao in a fight he wasn’t a supposed to have a ghost of a chance to win.

"It’s gotten a lot busier," admitted Horn on Saturday. "A lot more media commitments, a lot more invites to events. A lot more charities and things like that are getting me to do things. I’ve been fairly busy the last five weeks.”

To judge his activities by social media posts you could be forgiven for thinking Horn has spent more time in a tuxedo than boxing shorts and gloves in the past five months. There was a whirlwind trip to the United States with his pregnant wife Jo to attend ESPN’s ESPY Awards in Los Angeles in July; suited and booted again in October to accept The Don Award from the Sport Australia Hall of Fame for the most inspirational Australian sportsman, named after legendary cricketer Sir Donald Bradman; while in November a tuxedoed Horn accepted the GQ magazine Sportsman of the Year Award.

"The last five months have felt like five weeks," said Horn. "It’s been a whirlwind ever since."

Add to this various charities lining up ten deep to sign up the services of the polite, clean-cut and well-spoken boxer, corporate speaking gigs, invitations to social events, sporting events, even political events and you could be forgiven for thinking that the increased demands on his time could be driving Horn to distraction.

He insists this is not the case.

"Everything in the whole preparation can be seen as a distraction," said Horn. “It depends on how you handle it. There’s a lot of things people want you to do, this and that. I’m happy to do it, I just treat the things I do as a day out. As long as I get my training in somewhere, make up for it somewhere else, I’ll be fine.”

Horn says his preparation for Corcoran has been a little different than his training for the Pacquiao fight, with a new set of sparring partners drafted in to mimic the 27-year-old English traveller’s walk-up, high volume style.

“They have been completely different guys to the ones I sparred for Pacquiao,” Horn said. “For Pacquaio they were southpaws to start with, who were about the same size as him. This time I’ve been sparring a little bit bigger guys and non-stop, come-forward type guys."

Horn

Amongst his sparring partners have been WBO #4 junior middleweight Dennis Hogan, former interim WBO lightweight champion Michael Katsidis, Mark Gadaleta and Jacob Bobir, all aggressive, physical-style fighters.

“Anyone that comes forward, because that’s what we think this guy is going to be like. He’s going to come forward for much of the fight.”

Against the smaller Pacquiao, Horn was the one coming forward, pushing the former eight-division world champion back on his heels and roughing him up on the inside. In Corcoran he faces a naturally bigger opponent who has competed as a junior middleweight for half of his professional fights. It may not be as easy to bully the “Hellraiser” around the ring as it was the ageing Filipino icon.

“It all just depends on what I feel is working,” said Horn of his gameplan. “If I feel I can outbox him, I’ll outbox him. If I feel I can out-muscle him, I’ll do that instead. I’ll probably be trying both to see what works better.”

Despite criticism coming from some quarters about Corcoran’s record and number 10 ranking by the WBO in the welterweight division, Horn insists the once-beaten Englishman brings his own skillset to the table that will take some time to figure out.

“He’s not a bad boxer, he’s pretty good. His strength is probably his workrate. He normally puts guys under pressure and that’s the main strength he has, he wears them down in that way, so I’ve just been training against that, basically. Anytime he’s going to throw, he’s open for a shot,” said Horn.

Recent footage published online show Horn working out with strength and conditioning coach Dundee Kim. Horn was practising throwing punches while backing up and finishing his combinations with a chopping right cross.

Is that the punch fight fans should be watching out for?

“Yeah, I think so. I think I’ve got to watch his right hand when he’s throwing it at me too, that’s the one I’ve got to dodge. For me, it’s going to be the same thing. I’m going to be able to hit him with right hands and left hooks as well,” Horn said.

While Horn has been putting in the work to get ready for Corcoran, talk of a March/April matchup with top pound-for-pound fighter Terrence Crawford has been bubbling away in the background ever since the 30-year-old Omaha, Nebraska native renounced his 140-pound titles to move up to the welterweight division.

The WBO installed the undefeated Crawford 32-0 (23) as their mandatory contender for Horn’s welterweight crown in their November rankings.

“I haven’t looked into Crawford that much yet because I’ve been focusing on Corcoran, but it’s something I’m sure we’re going to be talking about after this fight,” said Horn. “We’ll see what happens but it feels like that is the direction things are going, but we’ll have a look when the offer is on the table.”

Ever since Horn’s breakthrough win against Pacquiao there has been a perceptible shift in attitude in Australian boxing that has permeated the sport from the amateur ranks right through to seasoned professionals.

There is a genuine self-belief amongst boxers now that simply was present prior to 2 July 2017.

“It’s great,” said Horn. “I’m glad I’ve kind of reinvigorated the sport a little bit, got people watching it a bit more and even the boxers feeling like ’I believe in myself now, I can actually do this’.

"There’s a lot of tough guys out there in the world but there’s nothing different we do, we work just as hard and train just as hard to beat them as well.”

The 2012 London Olympian takes particular pride in the positive impact he has had on Australian amateur boxing.

“It’s great and I’m really happy to have that because it frustrated me when I went to the Olympics," said Horn. "I felt like the vibe was Australians didn’t really inspire fear in their opponents, which explains why many of us didn’t do too well at the Olympics.

"More and more Australia is getting more confident, particularly in boxing. Hopefully these guys can start winning more medals and showing these guys what we have got Downunder.”