Final take on Pacquiao Algieri

By sam6882 - 11/20/2014 - Comments

by Sam: In my earlier article I wrote how this fight would pan out in my opinion from a neutral fight fan’s point of view. This article will be more about my gut feeling and I’ll explain why I feel the way I do.

To win this fight, Algieri will have to be at his best and fight a perfect fight. First of all from all the coverage I’ve seen on this fight, many experts have said that Manny will face adversity in this bout. I can see that happening. Some rounds may go Algieri’s way. He may be able to dominate Pacquiao with the help of his physical attributes for some rounds and that will frustrate Manny and he will get reckless. I’m not buying that idea. I’ll explain in detail why.

Most of us might have seen Pacquiao- Bradley 2 and to be very honest Pacquiao looked good only in patches in the early rounds, but, then through the later rounds he outclassed Bradley, who is a formidable opponent for anyone. Although that was not Pacquiao’s most dominant performance, he showed something very important in that fight. He showed us that he can handle adversity and he does not get reckless when the opponent wins some rounds. He takes his time and then picks his spot. He doesn’t get lured into traps most of the times. Let me explain in an even better way. I hope you saw the Bernard Hopkins vs Sergey Kovalev fight. In that fight whenever Bernard tried to set a trap for Kovalev, Kovalev did not step in. He rather took a step back, took his time and continued his domination. The Tim Bradley 2 fight was approximately similar to that in the second half.

All of us know the two most important sentences in boxing. 1.) Anything can happen in boxing and 2.) One punch can change it.

Just imagine how much has a single punch changed the boxing career of a legend and the perspective of boxing fans and analysts towards him. If Pacquiao wouldn’t have been caught by that perfectly timed right hand from a world-class counter puncher like Marquez and gone down the way he did he might have won the fight by his own stoppage. Not to take any credit away from Marquez, as he must have trained and practiced that punch many times in his training, but that punch made us all believe that Manny is a mortal human being after all and that he is not unstoppable.

Since that bout everyone seems to have the perception that Manny is vulnerable now, which might be true partially. But, you’ve got to remember that it was not a rookie fighter who knocked out Pacquiao, it was a world-class Mexican warrior in Marquez. It took some fights for Marquez to finally figure out Pacquiao. Now, there are a few things to consider here… Manny “was put to sleep” but, he did not take a very bad long prolonged beating. Before that amazing punch Pacquiao was most probably winning the fight. So that fight did not take away that much from Pacquiao in my opinion.

Since then, everyone seems to believe that anyone can beat Pacquiao because Marquez knocked him out. Well, you saw the result of the next two fights. Brandon Bam Bam Rios, a tough fighter, thought he could end it for Pacquiao as easily as Marquez did. What happened next was a beautiful display of Willie Pep ‘ish’ type of performance from Pacquiao where he did not let Rios throw any big punch, dancing circles around him, throwing combinations at will and controlling the fight . I’ll be bolder and say that Manny Pacquiao schooled Rios in that bout.

Then came the Bradley rematch, where Tim said that he did not see the killer instinct in Pacquiao anymore and that he beat Marquez, so he could beat Pacquiao easily this time around. Well you almost saw the killer instinct of Pacquiao in that bout in short bursts, especially one time when Tim was pinned on the ropes and Pacquiao hammered him with a hard 10 punch combination. My point is, Manny may have been exposed by Marquez, but, if you feel that since Marquez exposed him in the way that he did, Manny will be beat down by boxers easily, well, then all I can say is watch his last two fights and you’ll see that is not remotely true.

That brings me to this fight vs Chris Algieri. It seems like the Rios’ fight circumstances all over again, where the trainer Tim Lane believes that Pacquiao has slowed down a lot and they could mimic him in sparring and that Chris will knock him out. Doesn’t that sound all too familiar from the Rios fight. Tim Lane is the trainer of Chris so you can’t blame him in a way, to say that about his fighter. Chris is his pupil, what else do you expect him to say. He has to remain confident in his fighter. That being said, I have to keep it real and be honest, team Algieri has gone way over their heads and have become too cocky. I even heard Tim Lane say in an interview that Pacquiao is going to be easier for Algieri than Ruslan. So, I’ll leave this stanza at that.

Now the more analytical side of me will do the analysis and explain this gut feeling I have. I am a chemical engineering student so I do a lot of Mathematics. There are two things of maths you need to see in this bout, first is chance (probability) and second is statistics. Let me explain. The chance of getting hit by a shark is similar to that of being hit by a lightening bolt. But, the probability to get hit by two sharks at the same time is even lower. Now, let me show you how my gut feeling tells me this applies in this fight. Algieri had a big upset win over Ruslan “Siberian Rocky” Provodnikov in June. Now he already stacked the probability odds there, good for him, bless his heart. But, by mathematics and even common sense in general you may think, it’s easier to cause one upset in a year then to cause two upsets in the same year, it is the same issue as getting hit by two sharks at the same time which is possible but, very unlikely to happen.

So, according to probability and my estimate in that respect Chris will not be able to cause two upsets in the same year and hence losing the fight to Manny Pacman Pacquiao.

Lets see the statistics side of the bout. Pacquiao was on a high until the Sugar Shane Mosley fight. His stock was on the rise and his graph was climbing. Then came the Marquez 3 fight, which started the dip of Manny’s graph, although he was given a decision over the Mexican, most of the people correctly thought Marquez won the fight because of the counter punching prowess he showed. Lets give you the exact numbers. In a survey among boxing experts and analysts who were not Mexican or Filipino, 57 had the fight for Marquez, 51 for Pacquiao and 30 had it as a draw. This initiated the dip in Pacquiao’s graph. Then, there was the controversial loss to Bradley, which dipped the graph even lower and finally the devastating knockout which was the lowest point since stardom for the Filipino slugger. But, just like in life after every sadness, happiness follows, so is the case in statistics and graphs. He had a dip, he took it like a man and came back and started to rise his graph again. We saw his graph rise a certain amount in the Rios fight and more so in the Bradley fight. If mathematics and graphs are to be trusted he will reach his second prime again, and he clearly has not attained that in Bradley fight as he seemed to be improving still. So his stock is meant to rise higher in this fight in my opinion and hence again I feel that Manny will pull this one-off in grand fashion.

So, what would I like to say after such a long article is that Manny Pacquiao will overwhelm Algieri if it`s a normal day and not a day of upsets. Besides most of the times in history we have seen that the upsets occur in fights where the bigger opponent takes the underdog lightly or trains badly. That was the case in the Provodnikov fight and that clearly does not seem to be the case with this fight as Pacquiao is in tremendous shape and is very explosive which means he has trained hard and which also means that he is not taking Algieri lightly. So, there you have it. Manny Pacquiao by Tko or Ko is my last prediction again and my non boxing but analytical take on why that, I have given the boxing explaination in my last article (http://www.boxingnews24.com/2014/11/how-will-pacquiao-algieri-pan-out/ ). But beware…”Anything can happen in boxing” . So stay tuned, stay blessed and stay excited.

I am excited for this fight that’s why I spent about one and half hours to write this post. I think I will write a post fight article again no matter who wins. Finally may the best man win and best of luck to both Manny and Algieri.



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