Manny Pacquiao Won’t Overlook Chris Algieri, Floyd Mayweather Talks Have to Wait; Erik Morales Has Advice For Filipino

Manny Pacquiao knows the challenge for his next fight against Chris Algieri won’t be a walk in the park admitting in a recent interview that he will not take the undefeated American lightly stating that Algieri will be more than motivated when their fight takes place on Nov. 22 in Macau.

On a related note, former boxing nemesis Eric Morales, agreed that Pacquiao has to stop the Floyd Mayweather Jr. talks and has no business overlooking a potent and dangerous boxer like Algieri, who will do all means necessary to pull off the upset in their upcoming world championship bout.

"No, absolutely I'm not taking this fight lightly because I know his hunger and he's young and he wants to win the fight, but I will not let that happen," Pacquiao said via afp.com.

Pacquiao’s recent declaration is a change of pace from statements from his camp, particularly chief trainer Freddie Roach, who declared days ago that even Pacquiao’s sparring partners in their training camp in General Santos City, Philippines are better than Algieri.

Algieri, like Mayweather, is undefeated in his boxing career. The American has won 20 bouts and eight came by way of knockouts. Algieri, who is five years younger than Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 knockouts) is a 30-year-old boxer who was also undefeated in his previous career in kickboxing, where he is also undefeated in 20 fights.

The bout against the unheralded and unknown Algieri is pegged by many boxing experts as just another tune-up fight for Manny Pacquiao. But the Filipino himself disagrees claiming that now until the November bout his main concentration is on winning his next fight and not the prospective Mayweather fight.

“I'm crossing my fingers that that fight will happen but right now my mind is already set to focus on my next fight with Algieri. I think the time to talk about that issue is after the fight,” Pacquiao said in the same article referring to the probable Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao bout in 2015.

Algieri is expectedly the underdog in the betting lines against the eight-time division champion in Pacquiao and most pre-fight consensus has the latter winning easily come November.

Meanwhile, a former rival of Pacquiao, Mexican Erik Morales warned the Filipino of overconfidence and looking too far ahead of the probable fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

“He’s thinking about Floyd Mayweather before thinking about his next opponent Algieri,” Morales said via boxingscene.com quoting the Mexican in a radio program from Toluca Radio. “Algieri is a young man, very tall and a lot of people do not know him. Manny has had many wars and if you underestimate your opponent, you may get a surprise.”

Morales knows of Pacquiao’s wars being across the Filipino’s path to glory with a classic trilogy between the Mexican and Filipino boxing legends.

The rumours of a Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao bout has circulated in boxing circles for years now but the pair has yet to agree on the super fight. However, talks of retirement for both pugilists and supposed discussions by the networks that own their pay-per-view fights has added fuel to the fire that the bout may be happening in 2015. But for Pacquiao, it appears he’s in the right mindset and taking it one fight at a time.