By Chris Williams: With it becoming increasingly clear with each and every fight that Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) takes nowadays that his power has disappeared on him since 2009, he is hoping that he can reach back 2000 yesterday’s ago and find some of his long lost old power to knockout his next opponent Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) on November 22nd at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, in Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.
Pacquiao hasn’t knocked anyone out since 2009 when he stopped Miguel Cotto in the 12th round. While Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach has continued to hammer away with his bold predictions for Pacquiao to knockout each of his last 8 opponents, Pacquiao has come up empty each time.
It’s gotten so bad that even Pacquiao is talking about wanting to find his aggressiveness so that he can start finishing off his opponents once again like he used to. As for Roach, he’s now given up the ship for Pacquiao in terms of him fighting at 147, and he wants him to move to light welterweight [140], where Roach thinks Pacquiao can find the fountain of youth to start knocking out his opponents once again.
“We are scheduled to fight for 12 rounds but that’s just too long,” Pacquiao said via sports.tempo.com.ph. “Six rounds (or less) will be enough.”
The Pacquiao-Algieri fight will take place at 144 pounds rather than 147. This is so Pacquiao can start his move downward to 140 so that he can start knocking guys out like he once did, as well as find some more opposition for him to fight. I don’t think there’s going to be any difference at all for Pacquiao in fighting at 140 as far as him being able to knock guys out.
We’ve seen aging fighters move down in weight many times in the past, and I can’t think of any case where the fighter was better off. Pacquiao likely won’t be stronger. Instead, I can see him being weaker.
The move will help Pacquiao find more opposition for him to fight though. At 140, Pacquiao can fight Ruslan Provodnikov, Algieri [again and again], Terence Crawford, Raymundo Beltran [if he’s willing to move up], Mikey Garcia and Jessie Vargas.
None of those guys are big enough names to bring Pacquiao’s sagging pay-per-view numbers back up to the 1 million buys category, but at least it’ll be a lot better than seeing Pacquiao continue to fight Tim Bradley. It’s new blood for Pacquiao.
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