Clash in Cotai II Pacquiao-Algieri in Macau 金光决战2

Yet again I descended to Macau for some big ticket professional boxing.  Last year I saw congressman Manny Pacquio defeat Brandon Rios. This time I scored a better seat to watch Pacquiao fight Chris Algieri.  

But it was no contest as the match-up of the PacMan with "a real-life Rocky"—as per Stallone who was in the audience—was one-sided, despite Algieri's five-inch reach advantage. The PacMan won by unanimous decision to retain his World Boxing Organization welterweight championship.

Pre-bout visit: Two politicians. And two boxers—well, one at least one from the silver screen, and literally both of them on the big screen here.

Golden Battle II:

Algieri was knocked down half-a dozen times.

“The only legit time I was hurt was when we were trading left hooks and I went down,” Algieri said. “That was the only shot that really hurt me.” 

Two Filipino congressmen were sitting next to me, watching their fellow congressman fight. 

Proclaiming to want to fight Mayweather:

Jessie Vargas of Las Vegas defending his WBA super lightweight title against former world champion Antonio DeMarco of Mexico.

Vasyl Lomachenko, two-time Ukranian Olympic gold medalist, defended his WBO featherweight title for the first time, against the number one contender Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo of Thailand. This was the best fight of the night. Apparently the Ukrainian injured his left hand with a headshot halfway through, but managed to jab with the other for the rest of the match.

Unlimited drinks, burgers and hot dogs and ice cream.

What are you looking at?

I enjoyed the undercard match more with China’s boxing icon Zou Shimin, who was also trained by Freddie Roach. Zou defeated Manny look-alike Thai boxer Kwanpichit Onesongchaigym in a 12-round WBO flyweight world title elimination bout. 

While Zou owned the ring and achieved four knockdowns, I was more impressed with his Thai opponent. The more Onesongchaigym got hit, the more aggressively he fought back. 

I've seen Zou fight three times now: light flyweight Gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and also at the Venetian Macao last year against Colombian Luis de la Rosa.

Zou's eye injury from an accidental head but might hold him back from his next scheduled fight in February.

Referee Genaro Rodriguez. I gather I must be a better photographer than my friend Tom.

I'll keep it to myself on how I managed to get this ticket with a face value to far too many Macanese Patacas so as to not jeopardize access to future events without having to fork over MOP $11,115.50 (which is equivalent to USD $1,392).

While US casinos are closing, Macau is still building, raking in more than seven times the gambling revenues of Las Vegas.