Manny Pacquiao

Pacquiao vs. Algieri: Gonna Break My Rusty Cage… And Run

Well. That went… Exactly as we expected. Even in this sport, where common sense and logic are thrown aside for less boring stuff like mayhem and stupidity, sometimes two plus two equals four.

Manny Pacquiao Chris Algieri - Chris Hyde Getty Images3 Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images

Well. That went… Exactly as we expected. Even in this fucked up sport, where common sense and logic are thrown aside for less boring stuff like mayhem and stupidity, sometimes two plus two equals four.

Very few of us gave Chris Algieri much of a chance to take down Manny Pacquiao, and the reasons were plentiful–he was inexperienced at the elite level, ditto his corner, (holy fuck more on them later) and he did not possess anywhere near the amount of power necessary to take down Pac Man.

The prevailing notion was that the New Yorker would use his size and reach advantage to pepper Manny with jabs, while circling around the ring to avoid the onslaught the Filipino legend invariably brings. Instead, we got what possibly could have been the dumbest, most ill advised game plan ever assembled this side of a Buffalo Bills game.

The tactic we saw unfold was essentially this: give away the first four rounds and let Manny run a bit out of steam. Then open up the offense in the middle rounds, keeping Pacquiao off balance and scoring points. And then, no really, and then, finish him off. Like, knock him out. That was the plan installed by Tim Lane.

Perhaps the reasoning in the gym, when this plan was put into motion, made sense at the time. But the problem was that they actually had to get into the ring and execute it. And throughout the buildup to the fight, Algieri seemed almost comically brazen. It was as if he had wholeheartedly bought into the notion that Pacquiao has faded.

Certainly, this is not the Pacquiao from 2009, when he was breaking everything he touched. But this Pacquiao is still an unbelievably fine craftsman who just defeated Tim Bradley, for the second time unofficially. WITH EASE.

This wasn’t Shane Mosley desperately trying to find the magic one last time. This is a man who is still ridiculously skilled, if not quite as lethal as he once was. Algieri and his team made a hideous misstep. They didn’t just buy into his hype, as there was very little to begin with, they CREATED the hype. They manufactured it, and they bought into it with every chip.

And then he got the ever living piss beaten out of him.

He handed off the first four rounds. Apparently, Tim Lane thought this was perfect. The problem was that Manny was landing hard shots, and Algieri had the same look on his face that nearly every fighter who steps into the ring with Pac Man has–the look of unexpected, impossible-to-predict trouble.

The speed and footwork was just as advertised–overwhelming.

Add into it a questionable knockdown, and Algieri was badly behind on the cards. He actually did come out in the fifth in an attempt to assert himself, and Manny stepped off the gas ever-so-slightly. I actually scored this round for Algieri–the only one I gave him.

But the momentum was drilled into the ground when Pacquiao dropped Algieri twice in the sixth. The pattern continued from there–Algieri would try to circle and throw the straight right, while Pac would land power shots that rattled Algieri’s cage. Oh, the fucking cage.

It was at that point that Tim Lane landed himself a spot in boxing infamy. Max Kellerman had wormed his way over to his corner to talk strategy, and Lane, arrogant to the bitter end, told Kellerman that Algieri was on the verge of a knockout, and that he was just about to “let him out of the cage.”

You couldn’t plan this stuff better–at that very moment, Pacquiao drilled Algieri with a grenade of a left hand, snapping his head violently and dropping him to the mat. Somehow, Algieri survived, though referee Genaro Rodriguez would have been justified if he’d stopped the fight. He wasn’t completely out of it, but he was getting destroyed and was nowhere near being in the fight at all.

The reality is that there probably wasn’t a game plan in this world that would have secured an Algieri victory unless it involved stabbing Pacquiao minutes before the fight. But what transpired last night was a gross miscalculation, a display of hubris that was the perfect ending to a hideous year for the sport.

Algieri gets props for being tough. He’s no quitter. And sometimes, guys like him can pull off a miracle. Maybe a fighter gets old overnight, or under trains, or just has a bad night.

And sometimes, great fighters embarrass ones who don’t belong in the ring with them in the first place.

 

Some Random Notes From The PPV Card:

Vasyl Lomachenko - Chris Farina Photo by Chris Farina/Top Rank

Vasyl Lomachenko is ridiculously talented. A fight with Nicholas Walters would be mouth-watering. He bitch slapped a pretty tough dude (with one hand for awhile) and made him look foolish.

Zou Shiming seemed to be on his way to a knockout win, then gleefully stepped off the gas and coasted to a decision win. He won easily, but his face looked like it was melting off at the end there. I’m still not sold.

Maybe Roy Jones helped Jessie Vargas after all. Vargas certainly seemed to have more snap on his punches, and he busted up poor Tony DeMarco badly. DeMarco has to be the oldest 28-year-old in the world. Dude has been hammered way too often in his career.

Perhaps it was the time difference, perhaps it was the atmosphere, perhaps it was the fact that it was Sunday over there, but good lord the broadcast team was awful last night.

Lampley, sweating profusely from the outset, stumbled over his words constantly, while Max Kellerman fawned like a 16-year-old girl over Roy Jones. And Lomachenko. And Shiming. And Pacquiao. And Algieri. And Lampley. And Pacquiao’s mom.

Speaking of Pac’s mom, yikes. I kept waiting for her to start violently exorcising everyone who sat in her row. Holy shit.

What the hell was Stephen Baldwin doing there?

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