If Pacquiao can’t win by KO, Lutong Macau

By Al S. Mendoza

 

IF Chris Algieri will mix it up right at the opening bell, he will be knocked out before Round 1 is over.

That’s how confident I am.

In Manny Pacquiao, Algieri will finally meet his real acid test.

He may have built a menacing 20-0, win-loss record but then, virtually all of his victims were mere pretzel vendors.

His eight knockout victims may have been illegal aliens out to earn a fast buck or they’d die of starvation.

Algieri is almost five inches taller than Pacquiao and also has a five-inch reach advantage.

But so sorry for him as Pacquiao thrives best against fighters much taller than him.

Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley, Joshua Clottey, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito were giants when ranged against Pacquiao.

But what happened to all of them?

They got battered, beaten and bewildered.

Algieri, almost 5-foot-11, will suffer the same fate and I pray and hope he won’t seriously get hurt.

Speed and power will always tear down taller and slower foes.

If Algieri doesn’t become Pacquiao’s 39th knockout victim today in Macau, I hate to say it but I’ll say it just the same:  Lutong Macau.

If Pacquiao’s knockout ways should be finally recalled, it should start today.

It’s been five years or so when Pacquiao scored his last knockout victory—a 12th-round TKO over Cotto in 2009.

He can’t afford to miss this knockout chance again or his third win coming on points in this his fifth fight since 2012 will really mean nothing.  Empty.  Hollow.

So wide a gap is their talent that Pacquiao is a 9-1 favorite to defeat Algieri and retain his WBO world welterweight crown.

I don’t know what kind of style or weapon Algieri will use to score The Upset of The Decade.

But if I were him, I’d go all out because he has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Algieri loses nothing if he bows but wins everything if he prevails.

Already, his $2-million paycheck is his biggest yet and, with a victory, it would make him only the sixth man to defeat Pacquiao in 64 fights.

It will also make him a champ again—just weeks after the WBO stripped him of his 140-lb world jr. welterweight title.

As I said, if Algieri survives a slam-bang clash in the first round, he may yet land in dreamland between the second and fifth rounds.

For Pacquiao to lose, Algieri must need brutal assistance like using his knee if not head or elbow.

The American of Italian descent is a kickboxer turned prizefighter.

As I was saying, Algieri may yet be Pacquiao’s tune-up fight, with Floyd Mayweather dancing in PacMan’s mind even before the first punch is thrown today.

Money will make the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight happen; nothing else matters.

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