Chris Algieri had a very interesting 2014. He defeated Emmanuel Taylor and Ruslan Provodnikov, and then was defeated by Manny Pacquiao. In defeat, he was dropped six times. Then he made a change in switching trainers to veteran John David Jackson. Continuing a string of tough fights, he faces another one of the better fighters in the sport in Amir Khan from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Algieri spoke to ESPN.com’s Brian Campbell, where he says he feels Khan might be a good stylistic matchup for him.
“It was a fight that I thought about for a number of years, long before I was ever in the limelight of the sport,” Algieri said. “I just thought stylistically that it would be a great matchup and a good-looking fight. I was down in South Florida training with John David Jackson. I went down to test out how our training would be a couple of times long before this fight was even mentioned, and we talked about a couple of possible guys that were out there. Khan was one of the guys, and when my name came up, we were psyched about the opportunity.”
Switching from Tim Lane to John David Jackson was looked upon as a good move by many boxing insiders. Algieri feels the connection with his new trainer has been worth the move to change camp locations to Florida.
“John is incredible,” Algieri said. “He’s an incredible coach who puts in his homework. He did a lot of studying, even before the first time I came down to see him. He has been trying to show me new things. Constantly, I feel like I’m learning all the time. His style of coaching and my style of being coached coincide very well. It’s super, super hot down here and we do not have air conditioning in the gym, so it has been hell. It has been as close to hell as you can imagine in the gym, which I think is a good thing. We want to turn up the heat on fight night, so we might as well do it in training camp.”
Algieri also feels that he may be the bigger man and sees flaws in Khan’s game that he will be able to exploit.
“I absolutely [see them.],” Algieri said of Khan’s weaknesses. “He may be fighting at 147, but he started at 130. He has been moving up and only has a couple of fights at 147. The sparring partners I faced that were fast, they were all sprinters. There has been a tendency for Khan to fade in big fights. We need to capitalize on that and push the pace and push the pressure so I can dictate the pace.”
Algieri is making the move from having HBO televise his last two fights, to now being on the PBC Series. If it all works, Algieri feels he can be a PBC regular.
“It’s going that way, yes. The PBC series is a great thing that is being put together now, and I’d like to be involved as much as possible. It’s a new age and things are changing in the sport. It’s definitely evolving, which I thought has needed to happen for quite some time. There’s other sports coming into the picture that are taking some of the market out there. Boxing needs to adapt. But at the end of the day, boxing is alive and well. There was almost 4.5 million buys in the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, so things are looking good.”
