Referee Carlos Padilla has admitted he gave Manny Pacquiao 18 seconds to get up after being dropped in a hometown fight.
Before his days as a multiple-weight world champion, Pacquiao was an up-and-comer and was matched with Australian Nedal Hussein for a super-bantamweight title. And in the fourth round of their contest in the Philippines, Hussein put Pacquiao down with a big shot, forcing a ten-count from referee Padilla.
However, the Filipino referee allowed Pacquiao as long as 18 seconds to get up after being dazed, and let the contest continue despite Hussein's protests. And over two decades later, the referee has admitted that he gave a long count after being told that it was an important bout for Pacquiao to win, as well as making other moves that hindered Hussein's ability to win.
"Manny was not a world champion yet, he was only good in the Philippines,' Padilla said in a recent interview with the WBC's YouTube channel, which has now been made private. "That fight, I'm about to go and leave the following day and they told me 'Carlos, please - this is an important fight for Pacquiao, because the winner will have the chance to fight for the world championship'.
“So, you know the opponent, Hussein, or whatever his name was. He is taller, younger, stronger, and a dirty fighter, managed by Jeff Fenech. So in the seventh round, I think [it was the fourth round], Manny got knocked down, I thought he was going to get up, but his eyes were cross-eyed.
"I am Filipino, and everybody watching the fight is Filipino, so I prolonged the count. I know how to do it. When he got up, I told him, ‘Hey, are you okay?’ Still prolonging the fight. ‘Are you okay?’ ‘Okay, fight!’ and then Hussein……because Manny was not like Manny is now, he wasn’t trained by Freddie Roach yet, he holds on for his dear life, and the guy throws him, and he went down again. I said to the opponent, ‘Hey, you don’t do this.’ You know, I was prolonging the fight. ‘You don’t do that. Okay, judges, [point] deduction'."
The bizarre interview saw Padilla laugh about declaring a cut from a headbutt as having come from a punch, which eventually saw the fight stopped in round 10, and Pacquiao being declared the winner. Hussein hit back at Padilla's story, posting on his Instagram story that "This putrid dog admitted to cheating me."
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"Manny is still groaning and then [I said to Pacquiao] 'get up, are you OK?' And then because he is shorter he headbutted the other guy and there is a cut but I declared it a punch. If there is a headbutt you have to stop the fight and declare to the judges a point deduction, but I didn't do that, meaning the fight could continue. [The cut] is not really big - but I never got the doctor to check it [because] I want to see it serious."
And he wasn't confident that Pacquiao would win on the scorecards even after his point deduction, telling his countryman that he had better land a stoppage. "I said 'better knock that guy out Manny, because we may be in trouble'," Padilla added. "The guy was strong."
Padilla eventually had the doctor look at the cut and waved the fight off, handing Pacquiao a victory and setting him on a path to gold in multiple weight classes. Meanwhile, Hussein was never able to get his hands on a world title despite getting two opportunities. He ended up becoming a salesman in Australia, while Pacquiao is a multi-millionaire and political figure in his home country.
