2. Don’t Go For the Knockout
Photo by Ed Mullholand
It’s no secret that Chris Algieri isn’t a power puncher. With only eight knockouts in 20 straight wins, even your grandmother could figure that out.
It’s not even like his knockout record came from KO’s either. They’re just flat, basic, technical knockouts. Which in turn makes “The King of New York” a smart fighter, a trait that he flaunts around a lot with his master’s degree to back it up. Maybe not as much as he flaunts his spandex pants, but you get the picture.
What we’re asking of Chris this Saturday is to not get dumb when he goes up against Manny Pacquiao.
This isn’t like the Bernard Hopkins-Sergey Kovalev fight where we saw two top-tier guys from different generations going at it. This is Algieri testing the waters to see if he can hang with the top dogs.
We’ll be proud of him for just surviving, honestly.
But the New Yorker doesn’t want to just survive, he wants to keep his undefeated status alive, and in order to do that, he needs to play Pacquiao’s game of keeping it smart, utilizing all 12 rounds, and not getting carried away with crazy fantasies of KO’s.
