Algieri not worried about Roach’s trash talking

By Boxing News - 11/13/2014 - Comments

algieri79999By Chris Williams: Unbeaten challenger Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) isn’t too concerned with all the trash talking that WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach has been making recently as they head in to the November 22nd fight in Macao, China.

Roach has talked trash since day one, but recently he’s increased his trash talking to another level in taking more verbal shots at the 30-year-old Algieri. You can’t blame Roach for wanting to talk more trash at this point in the game, because he’s got to be generally concerned about his aging 35-year-old fighter Pacquiao losing to Algieri.

Pacquiao hasn’t looked good in a fight in ages, and he’s not fought anyone that you can call a good fighter since his knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012. There are obviously a lot of worries there for Roach, because a loss for Pacquiao to Algieri on November 22nd could signal the end of the gravy train.

To be sure, Pacquiao will get an immediate rematch against Algieri due to Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum installing a rematch clause in the contract. However, if Algieri out-boxes Pacquiao a second time, it’ll be difficult for Arum to ask boxing fans to continue to pay to see Pacquiao fight on HBO. Pacquiao will have lost 4 out of his last 6 fights.

“He [Roach] is wasting his time because I don’t even read those reports, so that’s the first thing,” Algieri said via FIghtnews.com. “It seems kind of odd for him to be coming out so much and saying so many different things and every day it’s a new thing. But like I said, I don’t read them and I don’t care about them and it doesn’t make a difference come fight night. I would imagine it is some kind of strategy, a kind of mental game or whatnot. Freddie’s been around a long time and maybe this has worked for him in the past but it’s not going to work on me.”

Roach is looking to get an extra edge for his fighter Pacquiao. If his trash talking can lead to some self- doubt on Algieri’s part, then Roach will have accomplished his goal. Roach’s trash talking also helps things out in terms of attracting some interest in the fight.

As things stand the Pacquiao-Algieri fight will be lucky if it attracts 400,000 pay-per-view buys due to boxing fans having no clue who Algieri is. I’m not sure that it’ll matter much in the big scheme of things the trash talking Roach does. In other words, he’s not going to be able to budge the PPV buys in a significant manner by trash talking Algieri.

If anything, Roach’s trash talking will hurt the PPV buys more than help them, because casual boxing fans don’t have a clue to Algieri is, and they’re probably not going to want to dump a lot of cash on paying to see Pacquiao fight Algieri. Instead of tearing Algieri down, Roach should be trying to build him up so that fans will want to pay $70 to watch the fight.



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