Manny Pacquiao’s next opponent finally named

Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 knockouts) has finally selected an opponent for his November 23 fight in Macau, China.

After putting the first loss in Timothy Bradley’s immaculate record in his last fight, Pacquiao will attempt to do the same thing against the undefeated Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs).

Algieri last fought back in June 14, defeating the Freddie Roach trained Ruslan Provodnikov via split decision. The Huntington, New York local had to bounce back from a knockdown in the first round to outbox Provodnikov and escape with the decision. The win will be worth at least a million dollars for Algieri as he is geared to make that amount against Pacquiao, a vast improvement from his $100,000 purse against the Russian.

“I think it’s an interesting fight between him and Manny,” Bob Arum told Dan Rafael. “I’m excited. This is a college-educated kid, a good boxer, the kind of kid who will draw interest other than the just the hardcore boxing fan. And the kid can also fight.”

“Manny is 100 percent for it,” Arum added. “I told him I was coming along with it. He said Algieri seems like a nice young man and he saw his fight with Provodnikov. Manny said he thought it would be a good fight and he was OK with fighting Algieri.”

Aside from training for the fight against Algieri, Pacquiao will also start his PBA coaching and maybe even playing career in October when Asia’s oldest professional basketball league starts its 40th season.