WBO light welterweight champion Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) has been given an offer by Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank for a fight against Pacquiao on November 22nd in Macao, China.
The offer is a seven figure one, and it’s very likely to be accepted considering that it’s likely the biggest payday that the 30-year-old Algieri has ever received. Arum is interested in wrapping up the deal as quickly as possible.
It’s obviously not a great fight, and you have to wonder why Arum isn’t trying to pursue more appealing opponents for Pacquiao that might interest boxing fans such as Lucas Matthysse, Danny Garcia, Saul “Canelo”Alvarez or Amir Khan, for starters.
Arum said to the NY Daily News, “I hope we’ll be able to get Joe on the phone and we’ll be able to button this up. We’re talking serious now with the idea of making the fight. It’s not [BULL]. Now, whether it gets made or not I don’t know. But I can tell you the fight is there for Chris.”
With there still being 4 months to go before Pacquiao’s fight on November 22nd, Arum still has plenty of time to get a bigger name than Algieri. Why is he rushing into getting him for Pacquiao? There’s many different theories you could think of, and the only thing reason I can see for Arum picking Algieri is the fact that he’s not much of a puncher.
If you’re a promoter like Arum, you want to keep your money maker functioning for as long as possible so that the cash keeps rolling in. By Arum matching Pacquiao against the likes of Algieri, Brandon Rios and Tim Bradly instead of guys that can punch, it increases the likelihood that Pacquiao will continue winning for into the future.
“We have a Pacquiao offer on the table and we are negotiating that actually as we speak,” Algieri’s promoter DeGaurdia said. “And I expect that we’re going to have a resolution within the next day or two.”
They’re hoping this deal up quickly, and it’s possible that it could be signed by this week.
What’s interesting is that Pacquiao recently signed a two-year extension with Top Rank, and it was thought that with the new signing that Pacquiao would start facing some real interesting names. But thus far it’s been only Bradley now Algieri. You have to wonder who comes after Algieri.
In trying to guess how many pay-per-view buys a Pacquiao-Algieri fight would bring in on HBO, I’d have to say somewhere around maybe 300,000 at best. I see this as being a big, big disaster unless Arum loads up the undercard with big names. I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.
