Chris Algieri’s promoter, Joe DeGuardia, of Star Boxing, informed RingTV.com on Tuesday that he has begun preliminary discussions with Top Rank regarding a potential bout with Manny Pacquiao.
At the same time, the promoter of Ruslan Provodnikov, Artie Pelullo, said that he intends to exercise the rematch clause in the wake of Algieri’s split-decision victory on Saturday that dethroned Provodnikov as WBO junior welterweight titleholder at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Provodnikov’s chief cornerman, Freddie Roach, who also trains Pacquiao, credited Algieri for “a ballsy fight,” although the six-time “Trainer of The Year” believes his man won.
“My fighter, his manager, Vadim Kornilov, and his trainer, Freddie Roach, have asked me to exercise the rematch clause,” said Pelullo, CEO of Banner Promotions, who has three options on Algieri.
“If the Manny Pacquiao’s not on the table for Chris Algieri, and I don’t believe that’s going to happen, then, my fighter wants me to do the rematch, and so that’s what I’m going to do.”
But the 30-year-old Algieri (20-0, 8 knockouts) and DeGuardia have been campaigning for a fight with Pacquiao since the boxer scored the dramatic albeit disputed win over Provodnikov (23-3, 16 KOs), rising from a pair of first-round knockdowns and overcoming a swollen-shut right eye to on HBO.
“They can exercise the rematch clause, but my interpretation is that it doesn’t preclude me and our fighter from taking an interim. He’s got three options, and one of them can be a rematch, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be the first fight,” said DeGuardia.
“That just means that at one point in time, so there certainly are a lot of options. I’ve already begun conversations with Top Rank about Pacquiao, and we’ll see where that leads. I think that when all is said and done, marketability-wise, Chris Algieri has proven himself to be a tremendously marketable fighter.”
Algieri had an advantage in overall punches (288-to-205) and power shots (177-to-164) and jabs (111-to-41) against Provodnikov, who had scored a pair of knockdowns in the eighth round of a 10th-round stoppage of Mike Alvarado in his previous bout in October.
The win over Alvarado followed Provodnikov’s unanimous decision loss to then-WBO welterweight titleholder Tim Bradley during which Provodnikov scored a 12th-round knockdown in a March bout named “2013 Fight of the Year” by THE RING as well as the Boxing Writers Association of America.
