Chris Algieri hustles to make weight
Welterweight titlist Manny Pacquiao weighed in at 143.8 pounds Friday to easily make weight for his title defense against Chris Algieri on Saturday night (HBO PPV, 9 ET) at the Venetian Macao's Cotai Arena in Macau.
Junior welterweight titlist Algieri, who works as a nutritionist as a side job and was moving up in weight, surprisingly failed to make the catch weight contract limit of 144 pounds on his first try. He was slightly over at 144.2 pounds, even after stripping nude.
Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) had two hours to lose the weight, but used only about an hour before coming back to the scale and making weight at 143.6 pounds.
The weigh-in took place in the early morning hours Saturday in Macau, which is 13 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the United States. The fight will take place Sunday morning Macau time to accommodate the live American HBO PPV broadcast.
Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs), the Filipino icon and boxing's only eight-division titleholder, will be making the first defense of his title since regaining it by lopsided unanimous decision against Timothy Bradley Jr. in April in a rematch of Bradley's hugely controversial split decision in June 2012.
All of the other featured fighters on the pay-per-view card made weight on the first try.
Flyweight Zou Shiming (5-0, 1 KO), the three-time Olympic medalist (including back-to-back gold medals in 2008 and '12), made the division limit of 112 pounds for his world title eliminator against Kwanpichit Onesongchaigym (27-0-2, 12 KOs), of Thailand, who was also 112.
Featherweight titleholder Vasyl Lomachenko (2-1, 1 KO), a two-time Olympic gold medalist from Ukraine, was right on the division limit of 126 pounds for his first defense. Challenger Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo (52-1, 33 KOs), of Thailand, was also 126.
Las Vegas junior welterweight Jessie Vargas (25-0, 9 KOs), defending his secondary world title for the second time, was at the division limit of 140 pounds. Challenger Antonio DeMarco (31-3-1, 23 KOs), the former lightweight world titleholder from Mexico, was 139.3 pounds.
