By Keith Idec

Freddie Roach continues to ridicule Chris Algieri’s chances of pulling off an upset Saturday night, but Algieri couldn’t care less.

Roach most recently told a BoxingScene.com reporter in Macau, China, that Manny Pacquiao will knock out the unbeaten underdog from Long Island in the first round of their scheduled 12-rounder at The Venetian Macau (HBO Pay-Per-View; $69.95 in HD; 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT). The mild-mannered Algieri hasn’t said anything derogatory about Pacquiao or Roach in response, nor is he sure why Pacquiao’s provocative, Hall-of-Fame trainer thinks incessant trash talk will bother him the way it has aggravated several previous Pacquiao opponents.

“For one, he is wasting his time because I don’t even read those reports,” Algieri said on a recent conference call. “So that’s the first thing. Second of all, I kind of hear about them from other people around me and I just usually say, ‘That doesn’t make a difference to me.’ But it seems kind of odd for him to be coming out so much and saying so many different things on so many different days, and every day it’s a new thing.

“But like I said, I don’t read them, I don’t care about them, they don’t make a difference come fight night. I would imagine it’s some kind of strategy, a kind of mental game or whatnot. Freddie has been around a long time and maybe this has worked on the guys in the past. It’s not going to work on me.”

The 35-year-old Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs), who’ll defend his WBO welterweight title, is about a 7-1 favorite over the 30-year-old Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs), of Huntington, N.Y.

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.