โHeโs got a good jab, a good left hand. I think thatโs his best weapon,โ Manny Pacquiaoโs trainer Freddie Roach said of Chris Algieri, their opponent on Sunday (November 23) at the Cotai Arena in Macau.
But he cautioned, โMannyโs got a real good jab. He probably has the best jab in the business but he doesnโt like to use it that much. In this fight heโs going to have to and we worked on that quite a bit. He used it a lot of in the De La Hoya fight, it worked very well and I think thatโs part of the plan. If we can take his jab away and use ours faster and more effectively, I think thatโll be the key to the fight.
โ[Algieri] has a pretty good jab but you can take that away easily. Itโll be taken away in the first round, heโll stop throwing it.โ
โIโm expecting him to move and try to outbox us,โ Roach continued. โItโs a big ring, it maybe favours our opponent a little bit. I would like a smaller ring but itโs a ring that weโre used to. It was the same last time. It didnโt help our last opponent and I donโt think itโs going to help this one either.
โI think his defence is pretty good because of his foot movement. Not because of blocking punches with his hands. He has good foot movement, he floats around the outside of the ring, but that is not impossible to cut off. If a good fight knows how to cut the ring off and set traps, itโll only work for a certain amount of time.
โ[Body shots] come into play, take the legs away. Theyโre very important in a fight like this for Manny. But the thing is, [Algieri is] kind of tall, rangy and so forth, high guard, the body is open. Itโll be part of our attack,โ Freddie said.
โ[Pacquiao] has to get in close. Mid-range is Algieriโs territory.
โWeโre going to try to make it exciting. Weโre going to cut the ring off. Weโre going to set traps. Weโre well prepared for that style. Weโre not going to make this a boring fight. One thing about Algieri, if you get him in position and you start exchanging with him, he will throw back. He is brave. You saw with Ruslan [Provodnikov], he has guts. Weโre going to get him into exchanges and thatโs going to help the fight.โ
Pacquiaoโs trainer does see flaws in the challenger. โSquare on, a kickboxer, a lot of mistakes,โ Roach insisted. โKickboxers usually donโt do well in boxing in the history of the sport. Iโm not saying everybody. I question his strategy but weโll see.โ
โWhen [Algieri] fought Ruslan he showed a lot of heart and a lot of balls to get up,โ Freddie conceded. โHe was hurt really bad, his eye was shut and so forth. Ruslanโs a good young fighter, heโs still very young. He blew the Bradley fight because he overdid it and blew that fight because he didnโt really know what to do with the two knockdowns. He got so tired trying to finish the guy. Ruslanโs a heavy puncher and so forth but heโs not Manny Pacquiao and Manny Pacquiao is a much better boxer, much smarter, much more experienced. If Manny knocks a guy down twice, he knows what to do with it. Believe me.โ
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