Moving pictures of himself toying with Manny Pacquiao is beginning to appear in Chris Algieri’s head.
Three weeks before they face off at around high noon in Macau (Saturday night in the US), Algieri said that he is looking forward to his coronation at The Venetian.
“I feel way too confident. Way too confident,” Algieri, 30, said in a story that appeared over the weekend in Newsday, the main paper of his native Long Island, New York.
Algieri was asked what things were keeping him preoccupied as his training for the Nov. 23 clash was about to reach its peak because he’d been reviewing Pacquiao’s last two fights the last few weeks, he answered that he has gone beyond watching videos.
Weeks of seeing Pacquiao flash his lightning-quick reflexes and dominate Brandon Rios and Tim Bradley has left him sick and tired of watching the Filipino dynamo.
Algieri swears he has already mastered the gameplan and he is itching to execute it to perfection at the CotaiArena.
Even one of his trainers believes Algieri is not only ready to rumble physically but raring to do it mentally.
Keith Trimble, who shares the training duties with long-time cornerman Tim Lane, also told Newsday that Algieri is “so mentally tough that you cant frustrate him, you can’t get in his head, you can’t psych him out.”
Going into the final weeks before the big day, both camps have been exchanging barbs with Mike Koncz, Pacquiao’s Canadian adviser boasting that the fight won’t go past six rounds.
Even Algieri’s promoter, Joe DeGuardia, was caught up with all the hoopla as well, saying that they are very much willing to give Pacquiao a rematch in 2015.