By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach will start training camp with his fighter WBO 147lb champ Manny Pacquiao next month in the Philippines for his first defense of his WBO title against light welterweight Chris Algieri on 11/22 in Macao, China.
Pacquiao is going to be fighting Algieri at a catch-weight of 144 pounds rather than at the full weight for the division. Pacquiao and Roach decided that it would be better for the training camp to be situated in the Philippines so that Pacquiao could quickly travel to nearby Macao, China for the fight against Algieri on November 22nd.
They don’t want there to be any potential risk of Pacquiao getting jetlag. The downside of Pacquiao training in the Philippines though instead of at Roach’s Wildcard Gym in Los Angeles, California is that it will be a little more difficult to get sparring partners. In training in Los Angeles, Pacquiao would have a constant flow of available sparring partners potentially available.
Roach feels extremely confident that he’s going to be able to come up with the perfect game plan to neutralize the considerable height and reach of the 5’10 ½” Algieri, and a lot of it has to do with Pacquiao cutting off the ring on Algieri and trying to stay as close as possible to him.
I’m not sure if that’s going to be possible in this fight because Algieri will move away from Pacquiao faster than the Filipino fighter will be able to cut off the ring on him. Roach better have more than just one game plan in case his original plan fails to work out for Pacquiao.
We’re talking about Pacquiao being in the ring with an extremely intelligent fighter who knows what he’s doing in the ring. You’re not going to see Algieri do something senseless like standing and trading for 12 rounds like we saw from Pacquiao’s last opponent Tim Bradley last April.
Algieri has a lot more going on mentally than to try something as foolish as that. He knows his limitations and he’s not going to get in the trenches with Pacquiao to give him an advantage.
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