Pacquiao vs. Algieri: Breaking Down Final Results from Saturday's Bout
It may not have been a knockout, but eight-time champion Manny Pacquiao left zero doubt who the victor was in his bout with Chris Algieri in Macau on Saturday night.
The southpaw destroyed his challenger by unanimous decision, 119-103, 119-103 and 120-102, tallying six knockdowns and controlling the entire fight from the opening round. The sold-out crowd was largely in Pac-Man’s corner from the beginning, and Algieri never really had a chance.
As mentioned, the pure domination immediately jumped out from the fight. SportsCenter highlighted the discrepancy in the number of punches thrown, which clearly set the tone in the match:
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The fact that Pacquiao landed 121 more punches is a testament to his relentlessness and accuracy. You don’t dominate statistically like that without some degree of accuracy. Pacquiao landed at a 46 percent accuracy clip, as opposed to Algieri’s 38 percent mark, according to CompuBox, via Dan Rafael of ESPN.com.
Pacquiao discussed his domination, via John Cherwa of the Los Angeles Times: “Tonight I did my best. I’m satisfied with my performance. I did my best, and that was enough.”
While Pac-Man was on a different level than Algieri, another thing that stood out was the challenger’s perseverance. Algieri was overmatched from the start, but he didn’t take his first career loss lying down.
For as impressive as the win over Ruslan Provodnikov was, dealing with Pacquiao’s speed, footwork and relentless flurry of punches was just too much for Algieri. However, instead of caving to the six knockdowns and losing by knockout, Algieri lasted the full 12 rounds and never gave in.
He earned the admiration of ESPN’s Skip Bayless along the way:
It was par for the course for the mentally and physically tough Algieri. His eye was swollen shut from an early knockdown against Provodnikov, and he still battled back to pull off the upset win.
A final thing that jumped out was the fact that Pacquiao did not register the knockout he has been searching for since 2009. ESPN Stats & Info provided the details:
There were certainly some questions about Pacquiao’s power and killer instinct coming into the fight because he hasn’t knocked anybody out like he used to, but Pac-Man did everything short of knocking out Algieri on Saturday. Registering six knockdowns is nothing to sneeze at, even if Pacquiao didn’t get that elusive knockout.
It is more a testament to Algieri’s perseverance than Pacquiao’s lack of power that there wasn't a stoppage.
Now the boxing community can turn its attention to everyone’s favorite question: Will Pacquiao get a shot at Floyd Mayweather?
Pacquiao did what he had to do on Saturday because a loss would have ended any hope at the matchup, and even a close win against an overmatched opponent would have put doubt into people’s minds.
If history is any indication, we will never see this highly anticipated fight, but Pacquiao at least kept hope alive by easily dispatching Algieri on Saturday.
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