By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) and challenger Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) met earlier today for their first stop in their 6-city press tour in Macao, China.
What was immediately notable about the press conference was the huge size difference between Algieri and Pacquiao when they stood next to each other. They looked more like a comedy duo than two guys getting reach to fight each other in the next three months in their catch-weight fight at 144 pounds on November 22nd in Macao.
Algieri’s huge size advantage over Pacquiao was pretty incredible. They looked like two guys that are several weight classes apart, even though both guys are basically the same weight. Algieri, 5’10” towered over the 5’6 ½” Pacquiao. At one point, a smiling Algieri crouched down to look Pacquiao in the eyes, and even then, he’s still taller than Pacquiao.
Looking at Pacquiao’s face at that moment, he didn’t look too happy with Algieri making himself short on his behalf. But you can’t blame Algieri for wanting to be able to look Pacquiao in the eyes, because Algieri had to bend his neck down when looking at Pacquiao and it might have been uncomfortable for him to look down for such a prolonged period of time.
Pacquiao said “He can box. I’m not saying he’s really good but he’s not bad. He’s okay. The biggest challenge for me is to fight another tall guy. I have to use my speed and footwork for this fight. I saw his fight with Ruslan. He took a lot of bad punches from Ruslan but he’s tough.
Pacquiao has been in with a couple of tall fighters during his career in 5’10” Oscar De La Hoya and 5’11” Antonio Margarito, but both of them were totally shot and/or weight drained when he fought them. De La Hoya was old and weight drained after coming down from 154 to 147 with help from a crazy diet.
De La Hoya was not in fighting shape to be in the ring that night when he lost to Pacquiao in 2008. It’s too bad they didn’t face each other earlier in De La Hoya’s career without a catch-weight handicap. Margarito looked like a shell of his former self when he fought Pacquiao in 2010. The power was gone, and he was even slower than before.
Margarito didn’t do himself any favors by not using his height and reach against Pacquiao. That’s the main difference between Margarito and Algieri. They’re both about the same size, but Algieri uses his height and reach by staying on the outside rather than crowding his shorter opponents the way that Margarito does. Algieri moves a lot more than Margarito, and that movement is going to be a major problems for Pacquiao on November 22nd.
I think Pacquiao is going to have fits trying to deal with Algieri’s huge height and reach advantage in this fight, because we’re really dealing with a guy that is a much bigger fighter than Pacquiao and he knows how to use his size to his advantage. Pacquiao is more of a pumped up super featherweight, and he doesn’t have the size to deal with tall guys that know how to move instead of just standing there like a bump on a log the way that De La Hoya and Margarito did when they faced Pacquiao.
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