Jeff Horn doesn’t know how many there were. Probably about 30, all different ages, some in school uniform and some not. He just knows they were going to bash him and his friend.
It had started earlier that day at school in Brisbane’s south. His mate had accidentally bumped into an older student, who spun around and pointed a finger at both of them: “I’m going to get you after school.”
The bully kept his promise. When school was finished for the day, Horn and his mate walked out the front gates, turned a corner and there they were.
“Get on your knees and say sorry to my mate,” ordered one, pointing at Horn’s friend, who dropped to his knees and was whacked across the face.
“Now you,” they said, pointing at Horn. “No,” Horn fired back. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” They slapped Horn across the face.
“Then I just walked away,” Horn, 29, recalls. “I couldn’t fight anyone let alone fight 30 of them. I remember walking back to my mate’s place that day. I felt so annoyed and so belittled. I’d been bullied many times before. I once got coward punched, and then got a flurry of uppercuts and it was all a blur. But that one, with the gang of 30 kids, was the one that sent me over the edge.”
Soon after, Horn walked into Glenn Rushton’s martial arts gym in Stretton as a geeky kid looking for a way to protect himself, for the confidence that comes with knowing how to properly throw a punch. He found that and a whole lot more.
He won an amateur boxing state title. Then national titles. Then he competed at the London Olympics.
He went professional, hasn’t been beaten in 17 fights (16 wins, one draw), and on Sunday week, before 55,000 people at Suncorp Stadium, will fight 11-time world champion Manny Pacquiao, one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in history.
The world has fallen in love with the Pacquiao legend, from Filipino street kid to all-time great. But when Horn steps into the same square ring to contest Pacquiao’s WBO welterweight title, he will be representing every kid who was bullied at school, who didn’t fit into a group, who was always standing on the outside.
