Filipino referee Carlos Padilla recently admitted he meddled during a boxing bout between Pacquiao and Australian Nedal Hussein.
According to his own statement, Carlos admitted he gave countryman Manny Pacquiao an 18 count to recover after getting dropped in the 4th round.
Before Pacquiao became a world champion, he was matched with Australian Nedal Hussein for the super bantamweight title. It was Carlos’ last day as a referee, the bout was held in the Philippines and Pacquiao’s team knew how important the boxing bout was so they made sure Carlos was aware of it.
“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.”
Pacquiao was dropped in the 4th round by a bigshot from Hussein. Padilla saw Manny Pacquiao was wobbled so he prolonged the count giving Manny time to recover.
It didn’t stay on that either – Padilla also deducted a point from Hussein.
“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
“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’.
“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’.”
Carlos also admitted that he made a ruling to count a headbutt as a punch from Manny.
“Because he is shorter, he head-butted the other guy. 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.”
Pacquiao got the TKO win in the 10th round via doctor stoppage after Hussein’s cut was deemed too severe.
Hussein eventually discovered Carlos’s revelation and posted on Instagram “This putrid dog admitted to cheating me.”
Hussein finished his boxing career with a 48-5 record. He admitted getting cheated out of a win made him resent boxing.
Pacquiao continued to cement his legacy as the only boxer champion in 8 divisions with a 72-8 record.
Carlos Padilla came to fame when he refereed the historic “Thrilla in Manila”, bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier also held in Araneta Coliseum in 1975.