The great Manny Pacquiao did everything he could possibly do against Chris Algieri other than get a knockout in a one-sided thrashing to retain his welterweight world title.
Pacquiao, boxing’s only eight-division titleholder, scored six knockdowns and dominated virtually every minute of the fight to win a lopsided unanimous decision before a sold-out crowd of 13,201 on Saturday night at the Venetian Macao’s Cotai Arena in Macau (Sunday morning Macau time). Now, the only question left in his career is whether he will ever get fellow welterweight champion and pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr. to agree to fight him.
Coming into the fight there was a lot of discussion about where Pacquiao’s power had gone in recent years because, after a series of crushing knockouts as he moved up the scale, he had not scored a one in eight consecutive fights since a 12th-round knockout of Miguel Cotto in November 2009 to win a welterweight title for the first time.
Make that nine in a row now as the knockout drought continued, despite Pacquiao’s Hall of Fame trainer, Freddie Roach, predicting an early knockout, even saying at one point that it would be in the first round.
That didn’t come close to happening, but Pacquiao (56-6-2, 38 KOs) laid a beating on Algieri (20-1, 8 KOs), a junior welterweight titlist, who moved to meet him at a catch weight of 144 pounds.
The judges all had it lopsided for Pacquiao, 120-102, 119-103 and 119-103. ESPN.com also had it a shutout for Pacquiao, 120-103.