Manny Pacquiao Massacres Chris Algieri: Is Floyd Mayweather Up Next?

By Lou Eisen

There are no moral victories in professional boxing. There are only two possible outcomes for each pro fight; either a fighter wins the fight or he loses. Draws only occur when a judge doesn’t have the guts to score a round for either fighter. In boxing, points are awarded in each round for effective aggressiveness and Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao, 57-5-2, 38 KO’s was the very definition of that criteria in his fight against upstart challenger Chris Algieri, 20-1, 8 KO’s at the Cotai Arena located in the Venetian Resort, in Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.

Pacquiao swept all 12 rounds and scored six knockdowns along the way en route to a very wide unanimous decision. Two of the official judges scored it 119-103, while the third judge scored it 120-102. Ringside Report also had it 120-102 in favor of Pacquiao, of course. Yes, it is difficult to not like Algieri. He is a decent, hard working pug. The truth of the matter is he is not even remotely in Pacquiao’s class. Algieri got lucky in one fight and one fight does not make  a career. Algieri came down to reality big time as Pacquiao issued him an unmerciful beating that he will not soon forget.

Before Pacquiao and Algieri entered the ring to do battle, actors Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger visited their dressing rooms, wishing them both well. Stallone even went so far as to tell Algieri that he was a real life Rocky, which, in retrospect, was a rather dumb thing to say because Rocky Balboa was a talent-less pug that took a frightful beating in his first title bid.

Algieri possesses little to no power in his fists as his eight knockouts in 21 fights bears out. That already put him behind the eight ball even before the fight had begun. More importantly, he certainly did not even have enough pop in his mitts to at least keep Pacquiao off of him for any sustained period of time. Algieri could not beat the offensive juggernaut that was Pacquiao by retreating for all 12 rounds.
Pacquiao did exactly as he predicted he would prior to the fight. He said if Algieri attacked he would counter him savagely. Pacquiao then added, that if Algieri backpedaled during the entire fight, he would cut the ring off and beat the fight out of him, which is precisely what he did. If nothing else, Pacquiao is a man of his word.

By not having a big punch in his somewhat limited arsenal, Algieri was practically inviting Pacquiao to attack him with impunity for the 36 minutes the fight lasted. It is quite foolish to say, as some critics have, that Pacquiao is past his prime. That is utter nonsense. Bradley got a gift decision over him in a fight Pacquiao clearly won. Yes, Juan Manuel Marquez scored a legitimate knockout over Pacquiao; The loss to Marquez was really the only clear loss he has suffered in 10 years.

Pacquiao dropped Algieri to the canvas on six separate occasions while lumping up the challenger’s face. Six knockdowns! That is pretty good for a champ that is supposedly past his prime. Pacquiao was awarded his first knockdown of the fight in the second round. In reality, Algieri went down because he slid on the excess water that was in Pacquiao’s corner. Referee Genaro Rodriguez blew that call along with several others during the fight. Algieri landed few shots of any consequence and did no damage at all to Pacquiao with the punches that did manage to find their mark.

Pacquiao dominated the first half of the fight with relative ease. He mixed up his punches well and successfully attacked Algieri to the body and head. By the same token, Pacquiao’s constant head movement made him an exceedingly hard target to hit flush. What gave Algieri even more trouble than Pacquio’s head movement was the never-ending assortment of different angles from which he was able to successfully attack the outgunned challenger in every round. After the first five rounds, Algieri was bewildered at his inability to land a punch of any consequence on Pacquiao.

Algieri was given bad advice by his corner man, Tim Lane, before and during the fight. Lane was completely out of his element in a fight of this magnitude. He told Algieri to keep circling Pacquiao, while conceding the first half of the fight to him, in order to catch the champ in the later rounds, when he would supposedly be tired and beginning to lunge with his shots. All Algieri ended up waiting for was to get beat.

Algieri’s night almost ended in round six after Manny dropped him to the canvas hard with two vicious shots to the head that landed flush on the button. Algieri went down once again in Pacquiao’s corner. Algieri slipped once more although it was a legitimate knockdown from a hard shot that put him on the mat.

Moments later Pacquiao dropped Algieri for the second time in the sixth round and the challenger looked to be genuinely hurt. Algieri managed to rise where upon Pacquiao attacked him with wide-eye ferocity. Pacquiao came oh so close to ending the fight then and there. Ref Rodriguez could have stopped the fight at that point with little complaint from the fans or either corner. Instead he allowed Algieri to regain his feet and absorb more unnecessary punishment from one of boxing’s all-time great power punchers.

At that moment in the fight, Algieri was so far behind on the scorecards that he would indeed require a knockout if he wanted to win the fight. Pacquiao easily took rounds seven and eight from Algieri by continuing to throw hard, head-rattling punches in bunches from all angles. Algieri had been reduced to imitating a heavy bag; he was getting hit with everything but threw nothing back in return.

Algieri’s nightmare was not yet over by a long shot. In round nine, Pacquiao, who was now timing Algieri’s jab perfectly, caught the challenger with a perfect combo to drop him to the canvas once more. Algieri showed courage, if little else, while Freddie Roach screamed at Pacquiao to end the fight now. Pacquiao did not allow Algieri off the hook, jumping on him immediately after he arose from the mat, dropping him back on his butt for the second knockdown of the round and his fifth knockdown of the fight.

In a moment of utter ridiculousness, Algieri’s trainer Lane, actually said to his fighter after round nine, “You’re doing great Chris. You are exactly where you are supposed to be.” Really? Did Lane tell Algieri before the fight to go out and get dropped five times before round ten? Such comments showed why Freddie Roach is the best boxing trainer in the world while Lane is probably not even the top trainer in his own gym.

In round 10, Pacquiao caught Algieri flush and the sheer force of his punch knocked Algieri across the ring and down. That was the sixth knockdown scored by Pacquiao in this fight. Unless Pacquiao fell into a diabetic coma, Algieri had a snowball’s chance in hell, on a hot August day, of pulling this fight out of the fire. Contrary to Algieri’s misguided pre fight strategy as devised by Lane, Pacquiao was not showing even the slightest signs of fatigue. In fact, he was fighting harder and faster than he did during the first half of the fight. Pacquiao was actually increasing the tempo of his attack. Also, Pacquiao did very little lunging in the fight and always punched in combinations.

In a bit of unintended humor, Lane told Algieri prior to round 11, that he was now releasing him from his cage, so he could go out and score a knockout, just like they had planned in the gym. Pacquiao easily swept rounds 11 and 12 while furiously gunning for a knockout in both rounds. Algieri barely had enough stamina left to make it to the final bell to end the fight.

According to Freddie Roach, Pacquiao will now go back down to junior-welterweight, which is his best weight. That sound you hear now is the collective sigh of all of the other welterweights in the world.