The Australian boxer who was cheated out of a win over Manny Pacquiao has spoken out after referee Carlos Padilla admitted to bending the rules in their fight.
Nedal Hussein, who would never go on to become world champion despite making two attempts, put Pacquiao down in the fourth round of their 2000 match-up. But Filipino referee Padilla allowed Pacquiao as much as 18-seconds to get up from the blow, and gave him further opportunities to regain his composure during the fight.
And the referee then deemed a cut that was caused by a clash of heads was actually from a punch, meaning that when the bout was stopped in the tenth that Pacquiao was given the TKO win. Hussein was outraged by Padilla's admission in a WBC YouTube channel interview that has now been made private, and is looking at what he can do to take a further case against those involved.
“Honestly, after watching the referee video, it really hit a nerve. I was upset for a full 24 hours,” Hussein told World Boxing News. “It’s not the fact that he said what he said. It’s more because we already knew it. But the way he said it with a smirk and a smile like he was proud of what he had done, like the depth of corruption, it’s obviously in his veins and his heart.
"He had obviously done it before because it was nothing to him - I have spoken to [manager] Jeff Fenech regarding what’s going to happen. We don’t know what’s going to happen, so we will see what plays out. But we knew from the get-go [that something was going awry in the fight]."
Padilla claims that he was told prior to the bout that it was an "important fight" for Pacquiao, with the winner expected to challenge for the world title. And he admitted that he prolonged the count because he was Filipino, as was everyone who was watching the fight.
His interview with the WBC YouTube channel has since been taken offline, but re-uploads and transcriptions remain on various outlets. And Hussein claims that there were a number of issues around the fight, including his being moved to an hotel two hours from the venue hours before the event and even concerns about the referee prior.
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The Australian says that he was told the referee would be American, and that Padilla was brought in via a loophole due to his being a resident of the United States. The bout would be the last that he would referee, and could have changed the trajectory of two careers had it been officiated fairly.
“I can’t say Pacquiao’s career would never have been the same, but it would have been derailed, that’s for sure,” Hussein added. “He was a champion before I fought him at flyweight, and then he couldn’t make weight, so he lost his belt. Then he went up in weight.
“With the referee, the terms were there was going to be an Australian judge, a Filipino judge, and a Korean judge. Then they said the referee was going to be American. But then he rocked up. He was an American Filipino. So because he was an American citizen, they had their loophole.
“He was a Filipino all along. But it wasn’t supposed to be an issue because he was based in America. But we didn’t know anything about it until the last minute, to be honest.”
