Boxing News 2014: Chris Algieri Agrees to Fight Manny Pacquiao on Nov 22 in Macau
New WBO junior welterweight title holder Chris Algieri accepted the offer of eight-division title holder Manny Pacquiao to fight him in the latter's defense of his WBO welterweight belt on Nov 22 at the Cotai Arena in Macau.
"We have a deal. On my end, it wasn't a hard deal at all. I came up pretty much with what they were looking for and then [Algieiri's promoters] had to sit down with Algieri and cut it up fairly amongst themselves," Top Rank Promotions boss Bob Arum told ESPN.
Algieri initially dilly-dallied in his decision to accept or reject the offer, but Pacquiao's camp gave him an ultimatum to decide or lose the opportunity to earn at least $1.5 million, which is 150 times the $100,000 guaranteed purse he got when he won against Ruslan Provodnikov on June 14 at Barclays Center in New York.
Algieri initially found the amount quite small, probably in comparison to at least $20 million guaranteed purse for Pacquiao, accepting a reality in boxing that big-name boxers get the lion's share of the fight revenue.
Read: Boxing News 2014: Mayweather Expects $70 Million Purse from May 3 1st Bout With Maidana, While Argentinean Boxer Pockets Measly $1.5 Million Plus PPV Sales Share
The 30-year-old Algieri has a 20-0 fight record with eight knockouts, is a former kickboxing champion and has a master's degree.
Amid speculations that the Macau fight with a relatively unknown boxer would not generate high pay-per-view buys, Arum said that the fee The Venetian pays to have Pacquiao pick their place as venue for the fight is enough to fill up the anticipated lower PPV buys.
His last fight in Macau versus Brandon Rios generated 450,000 PPV buys, while his bout against Timothy Bradley got 750,000 PPV sales.
In a statement, Algieri said, "I wanted this fight. This will change my life once again and I welcome the future. All of Team Algieri is excited for this fight."
Pacquiao is highly expected to win the fight, while Algieri will surely get higher guaranteed purses in future bouts whatever is the result of his match with the Filipino congressman.
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