Manny Pacquiao will be an overwhelming favorite in his upcoming showdown against Chris Algieri on Nov. 22 in Macau, and the reigning World Boxing Organization welterweight champion is not losing sleep about his next fight.
Pacquiao is confident that he will win against Algieri in their match, but the former pound-for-pound king admitted that there will be no room for complacency after seeing how the Huntington, New York native won in his previous fight.
Algieri went down in the first round of his WBO light welterweight title fight against Ruslan Provodnikov in June, but the unbeaten champion managed to bounce back and escaped with a split decision win.
"I saw his fight with Ruslan. He took a lot of bad punches from Ruslan but he's tough. He can box. I'm not saying he's really good but he's not bad. He's okay," Pacquiao said of Algieri via BoxingScene.
Pacquiao, who is coming off a unanimous decision win against Timothy Bradley, said that Algieri's height advantage could also become a factor. Pacquiao is four-inch shorter than Algieri, but the Filipino boxing icon plans to utilize his speed and quickness to negate the disparity in height.
"The biggest challenge for me is to fight another tall guy. I have to use my speed and footwork for this fight," Pacquiao said.
Freddie Roach, who trained Provodnikov in his fight against Algieri, is now familiar with Algieri's fighting style. The Hall of Fame trainer echoed Pacquiao's statement, saying that he is also concerned with Algieri's height advantage.
"Algieri has a good reach advantage and we're going to have to get past that and his jab. That will be our biggest problem. We have ways to do that," Roach said.
On the other hand, Algieri, who will put his unblemished 20-0 record on the line, likes his chances against Pacquiao and he knows that can score an upset as long as he can avoid the same mistake that he had during the first round of the Provodnikov fight.
"First round I made a mistake. I paid for it for the next eleven and a half rounds. Got a little too aggressive too early against a very dangerous guy," Algieri said.
