By Scott Gilfoid: Chris Algieri (21-3, 8 KOs) won’t be retiring from the sport after having been blown apart in five rounds last Saturday night by unbeaten talent Errol Spence Jr. (20-0, 17 KOs) in their highly watched fight on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC.
Algieri’s latest defeat was his third in his last four fights, and with that many defeats, I wouldn’t blame him for walking away if that was something that he chose to do. Algieri’s promoter Joe DeGuardia wants to set him up with a tune-up fight to get him back on the winning track, but he doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to do that.
It’s possible that the 32-year-old Algieri will want to take on a high caliber fighter because that’s the type of person he is. Going from fighting the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Spence and Amir Khan to that of a fodder opponent for a smaller payday might not be Algieri’s cup of tea at this point. However, he’s going to need to think about stepping back a level at some point because if he keeps losing fights at this clip, the decision will be taken out of his hands.
You’re only useful as an opponent for the top talents as long as you’re seen as someone still capable of winning fights against top guys on occasion. If all your doing is losing left and right, then you’re heading towards journeyman level status and those guys don’t get big fights unfortunately.
“I’d like to get him a tune-up fight,” DeGuardia said to ESPN.com about Algieri. “I’m sure he’s going to want to fight a top level guy. When you’re a fighter, you want to fight the top and you also look and say, ‘Hey, financially I can make the most money fighting the top.’”
Man, it sounds like Algieri needs someone to save him from himself, because if he keeps losing like this, his career is going to implode very quickly. I mean, I can’t see him absorbing this many loses at this rate without him losing his ability to get the big name fights. How does a world champion explain himself to the fans and the media that he’s facing a guy with 3 defeats in his last 4 fights like Algieri? That’s just right now.
If Algieri keeps pushing for big fights against the top dogs, he could soon have four defeats in his last five fights and so on and so forth. I wouldn’t want to lose like that if I were him. Algieri needs to back off and get some confidence boosters in Rhode Island or wherever. He definitely needs to hit the reset button on his career before it’s too late. Once a fighter is at the journeyman level, it’s hard for them to claw their way back up to the top.
“I don’t see this as being something where you say, ‘Ok, should he retire?’ Because the reality is you’re fighting at the top level,” said DeGuardia.
Besides his loss to Spence, Algieri has also been beaten recently by Manny Pacquiao and Amir Khan. You can also arguably throw in Ruslan Provodnikov’s name in with those guys because many boxing fans thought Algieri deserved a loss to him as well. That’s four defeats in his last five fights. I think it’s panic time for Algieri. He needs to trim off some of that muscle he put on recently and start focusing on speed, being elusive and fighting 2nd tier guys for a while until he figures out what style is going to work for him.
Algieri was talking about how he was caught between styles against Spence. What in the heck is Algieri doing trying to use new fighting styles against a U.S Olympian like Spence? Algieri should have worked out the whole style thing against 2nd and 3rd tier fodder in 2016, and then came back reloaded for 2017 with a new style that he’s tested out against live bodies. That would be the smart thing for Algieri to do. But if he’s got his mind made up that he needs to fight the best every time out, then he can keep his career on the same course it’s been as it goes quickly down the drain. The good thing that would come out of that is that Algieri could then focus on going to medical school if possible to try and become a doctor. I’m not sure at this point whether Algieri would need to retake all his pre-med courses to get into medical school.