Jeff Horn's clash against Gary Corcoran is an all-or-nothing fight

School-teacher-turned-fighter Jeff Horn is set to make the first defence of his WBO welterweight championship tonight, against Gary Corcoran.

Horn will step between the ropes for the first time since his championship-capturing win over a past-his-prime Manny Pacquiao.

The 29-year-old aims to record his 18th pro win, against a British-born boxer with 109 rounds of experience under his belt.

Known as ‘The Hellraiser’, Corcoran is largely untested at welterweight. In his lone defeat, the 27-year-old beefed up to face Liam Williams for the junior middleweight crown, suffering an 11th round knockout loss.

Most expect him to suffer a similar fate against the Queenslander, who will have a lot of supporters in his corner at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Horn was initially penciled in to rematch Pacquiao in his first title defence, but an injury to the once-great boxer put those plans through the paper shredder.

Pacquiao, the only eight-division world champion in history, came tantalisingly close to knocking Horn out in the ninth round of their clash this year.

The tough-as-nails Aussie not only survived that onslaught but remained in the fight, snatching a crucial late round to win a close and controversial decision.

AAP Image/Dan Peled

In his maiden title defence, the world-ranked fighter draws Corcoran, a questionable title challenger from England.

While the Briton does not have an ironclad case for a title shot, winning just two fights since his loss to Williams, he is the perfect bounce-back fight for Horn.

The Aussie went to hell-and-back with Pacquiao in July, slugging it out for 12 rounds and being used as a punching bag for more than a few of them.

Corcoran, on paper, doesn’t really pose a serious knockout threat, and fights in an aggressive manner – exactly the type of fighter ‘The Hornet’ can sting without sustaining serious damage again.

What should be a cruisy win for the hometown boy became a lot more difficult three weeks ago, however, when Horn sustained a cut in training.

The battle scar required eight stitches above the left eye. Making matters worse, Horn also has scar tissue above his opposing eye, a daily reminder of his 36 minutes in the ring with Pacquiao.

Horn’s head trainer Glenn Rushton insists it isn’t a big deal.

“It was a freakish injury and it’s just something we will have to deal with,” he said at Monday’s press conference.

“We had it repaired as quickly as possible and Jeff has still trained very well even though we had to stop the sparring.”

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I’m not as quick to dismiss the cut. Horn is no defensive dynamo in the ring. He likes to fight in tight, doing his best work in an opponent’s striking range.

The former Olympian already had a target on his back, but now enters this risky fight with a huge target on his head as well.

The downside to facing a fighter with a lower profile, like Corcoran – as opposed to a future Hall of Famer like Pacquiao – is that it makes this a must-win bout.

The reality is, even if the history books reflect that Horn authored the upset of the year, the majority of the boxing community scored the fight for ‘Pac-Man’ and feel Horn only won because a trio of judges were swayed by a boisterous local crowd.

A loss to Corcoran, an unknown fighter outside of a very small circle, would – in the minds of his detractors, at least – justify their belief that Horn is a middle-of-the-pack fighter who got lucky.

‘The Fighting Schoolteacher’ could have a very big 2018, with multi-million dollar fights against Pacquiao and Terence Crawford on the table, but those plans would go up in smoke if Corcoran takes the WBO crown home to his gypsy camp in London.