Going into this weekend’s barnburner and Upset of the Year candidate, Chris Algieri was clearly underrated, especially by yours truly. For my part, years of watching former professional kickboxers flounder when they enter boxing (Muay Thai fighters in the lower weight classes not included), Algieri’s low knockout rate and his unremarkable resume caused me to dismiss him, sight unseen. Guys like him aren’t supposed to do well against world class opposition, ’nuff said.
Provodnikov, on the other hand, I quietly regarded as overrated. This is not to say the Russian isn’t a top fighter. His rugged durability, dogged aggression, and hard punching make him a legitimate contender, but the fact is that his throwback puncher’s boxing style make him such a fan favorite as to have lead many to overrate his ability. Algieri showed us that for all to see, but in so doing, is it now Algieri who is overrated instead?
Provodnikov Has Problems With Boxers
After the fight, Provodnikov complained about how Algieri’s stick-and-move style gave him fits. My answer to that is “no duh!,” and to say that anyone who didn’t know Provodnikov would have problems with a rangy mover has never seen the Russian fight (sleeping through a Provodnikov fight being impossible).
Ruslan Provodnikov is a puncher with lead in his fists and iron in his skull, and the bottom line on fighting a guy like that is that the more you stand in front of him, the worse it is for you. Yet guys like Provodnikov, like all purist punchers, have trouble with opponents who try to box them.
A lot of observers forgot the main reason why Provodnikov stretched Timothy Bradley to the limit is because Bradley started the bout looking to prove he could fight, and stood toe-to-toe with the Russian slugger for two rounds. Desert Storm got hurt, and while he switched gears, the damage he took left him a little vulnerable for the rest of the night.
He got wobbled in the 6th, and then perhaps unwisely got sucked into another two-round toe-for-toe. If Bradley had come out and boxed Provodnikov from the very beginning, he would have won cleanly, and far more easily, on points.
Mauricio Herrera also took home a decision victory against Provodnikov several years ago. And while that decision is somewhat disputed, it showed again that a gritty fighter with a superior skill-set can win the day against Provodnikov.
Keeping that in mind, is it any surprise that Algieri, a reasonably talented guy with skills, height, reach, and some serious toughness of his own managed to edge Provodnikov too?
Don’t Inflate Algieri
Just as Provodnikov was a somewhat over-hyped stock before fighting Algieri, now the ex-kickboxer from Huntington, New York is in something of a bubble. I’ll give the man his due: he showed a hungry will to win plus world class mental and physical toughness in taking Provodnikov’s hammer blows, and he had the ring smarts to stick to his game plan.
Yet the fact is that Provodnikov was always there to be out-boxed by a guy who could take his punches, so the outcome says absolutely nothing how Algieri would do against a knockout artist like Lucas Matthysse, let alone Adrien Broner or Lamont Peterson. Furthermore, Algieri’s tactics against Provodnikov were based on volume punching, and had to be because his power is merely average, as testified to by his mere eight knockouts over 19 journeymen and tomato cans.
Keeping It Real
A sensible observer will use Provodnikov vs. Algieri as an opportunity to step back and coldly assess what they know about both fighters with clear eyes. In so doing, one must draw two conclusions: 1) Provodnikov has serious difficulty with competent stick-and-move boxers; 2) Algieri is tough, but can’t punch, and we don’t know how he will do against a more skilled, more multi-faceted world class opponent.
With those two notions in mind, it becomes clear that Provodikov was overrated by a degree before this weekend, and now Algieri is overrated by a degree after it.
