Photo: HBO –
Manny Pacquiao versus Chris Algieri is a done deal.
Algieri and his co-promoters, Joe DeGuardia of Star Boxing and Banner Promotions’ Artie Pelullo, met for several hours on Tuesday and hammered out their remaining issues, resulting in an agreement that will see Algieri, a junior welterweight titleholder, get the opportunity to challenge Pacquiao for his welterweight world title.
The fight will take place Nov. 22 (HBO PPV) at the Cotai Arena at the Venetian Macao in Macau, China, where Pacquiao also fought in November 2013 and easily outpointed Brandon Rios, the promoters told ESPN.com.
“I have to talk to my lawyer, Dan Pancheri, who will spit out the contracts first thing (Wednesday) morning so they can have a copy of it in the afternoon,” Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said Tuesday night. “We have a deal. On my end, it wasn’t a hard deal at all. I came up pretty much with what they were looking for and then Joe and Artie had to sit down with Algieri and cut it up fairly amongst themselves.”
That is what Algieri, DeGuardia and Pelullo did for most of the day.
“We had a marathon lunch. We started out meeting in the morning, then went and had a long lunch together, came back to the office and finished it up,” DeGuardia said. “I called Bob to tell me we have a deal on our end. All the terms have been reached with Top Rank and we’re going to paper it up.
“We were able to sit down and go through everything Chris wanted to go over and put everything together. He’s gonna beat Pacquiao.”
Terms were not disclosed but DeGuardia said Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) will earn a career-high payday of more than $1 million. It will be more than 10 times his previous biggest purse, which was $100,000 for his upset split decision win against Ruslan Provodnikov to win a junior welterweight world title on June 14 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Eleven months ago the 30-year-old Algieri was unknown and not even fighting regularly on televised cards. Now he is fighting one of the most famous fighters on the planet for a world title and a seven-figure payday.
“He’s very happy. He’s happy for the opportunity,” DeGuardia said. “I’m ecstatic we’ve been able to give him this. It’s a great feeling. You work hard you develop him up the ranks. He fought off TV for a long time, he got on TV and now this. It’s really rewarding to see him get this opportunity and a payday that will change his life.
“He’s wants the fight and has no problem going up in weight. He wants the welterweight championship. He wants challenges. He loves the idea. He wanted to fight for another championship and he loves that he is fighting Manny Pacquiao for it. He looks as Manny as an elite of the game. He wants to climb another mountain. If he wins this fight, you have the start of another era.”
Algieri, from the Long Island, New York, town of Huntington, got knocked down twice by Provodnikov in the first round and persevered through a grotesquely swollen right eye for most of the fight. He also has a background different from most boxers.
A former kickboxer, Algieri grew up in a middle class family, went to college and eventually earned a master’s degree. He says he wants to go to medical school when he is done with his boxing career. He also works as a nutritionist.
“I think it’s an interesting fight between him and Manny,” Arum said. “I’m excited. This is a college-educated kid, a good boxer, the kind of kid who will draw interest other than the just the hard core boxing fan,” Arum said. “And the kid can also fight.”
Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs), the 35-year-old Filipino icon, has won world titles in a record eight weight classes. On April 12 in Las Vegas, Pacquiao convincingly outpointed Timothy Bradley Jr. to regain the welterweight title he had lost to Bradley in June 2012 in a fight in which Bradley received a split decision in one of the most controversial calls in boxing history.
Pacquiao and Arum have had terms in place for his next fight since Pacquiao signed a two-year extension with Top Rank in May that will take him through 2016 with the company that has promoted him since 2005. Although terms for the fight with Algieri were not disclosed, Pacquiao has been making in the $20-million-plus range for recent fights.
Although the business side of Pacquiao’s next fight has been set, he didn’t know who he would be fighting. Arum said Pacquiao called him on Monday morning to check in on his health — Arum is recovering from a recent knee replacement surgery — and they also talked about Algieri since Arum was getting close to a deal.
“Manny is 100 percent for it,” Arum said. “I told him I was coming along with it. He said Algieri seems like a nice young man and he saw his fight with Provodnikov. Manny said he thought it would be a good fight and he was OK with fighting Algieri.”
Pacquiao could be motivated for the fight by wanting to seek revenge for his beloved trainer, Hall of Famer Freddie Roach, who is also Provodnikov’s trainer and was on the losing end of that in that June upset.
http://espn.go.com/boxing/story/_/id/11221114/manny-pacquiao-fight-chris-algieri-china-nov-22
