Referee admits he gave Pacquiao an '18-second' countdown against Hussain in 2000

Filipino referee Carlos Padilla admitted that he deliberately gave Manny Pacquiao 18 seconds to recover when, in October 2000, the rising star was heavily knocked down in a fight with Australian Nedal Hussain.

Pacquiao was on the floor in the fourth round of the fight in which Pac Man defended the WBC international super bantamweight title, and judging by the replays, the future legend was given approximately 18 seconds of time from the moment of the knockdown and the resumption of the fight. Pacquiao was able to recover and defeated Hussein by technical knockout in the 10th round.

And now, all these years later, Padilla made quite a splash when he admitted that he extended the score because he was told before the fight that a promising Pacquiao victory was “really important.”

Speaking on the official WBC YouTube channel, Padilla admitted that he gave Pacquiao a longer score and that he "knows how it's done."

“After this fight, I was going to retire the next day, and they told me:“ Carlos, please ... this is an important fight for Manny Pacquiao, because the winner will have a chance to fight for the world title, ”said Padilla.

“And his opponent, Hussein, or whatever his name was, he is taller, younger, stronger. Dirty fighter, contracted by Jeff Fenech. And in the seventh round, it seems Manny was on the floor, I thought that he would get up, but his eyes looked in different directions (laughs). I am Filipino and everyone who watched the fight was also Filipino, so I extended the score. I know how it's done."

“When he got up, I asked: “Hey, are you okay?” Pausing even longer. "Are you okay?" "Okay, boxing!" and then Hussein... Manny wasn't quite the same as he was in his prime, he hadn't been trained by Freddie Roach yet, he starts clinching and the guy drops him and he's back on the floor. I told my opponent: "Hey, don't do that." You see, I dragged out the fight. “You don't do this. Okay, judges, I'm deducting a point."

Just the shocking words of the referee, who. But that's not all. Further

Padilla, who rose to fame as the third man in the ring in the legendary Manila Thriller bout, also added that he "failed to notice" the headbutt that Pacquiao landed on Hussein, which caused the fight to be stopped as Hussein was cut.

“Because Pacquiao was shorter, he hit the guy with his head and caused a cut, but I pointed out that this came from a blow,” Padilla said. “If a headbutt occurs, the fight must be stopped and the judges should be announced about the deduction of a point, but I did not do this, which means that the fight continued.”

Almost immediately after such an interview, Hussein called Padilya a “rotten dog” on social networks. Even after the fight in 2000, Nedal claimed that he considered the outcome of the fight with Pacquiao unfair.