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By Thomas Gerbasi - If Chris Algieri seems unnaturally calm and confident before the biggest fight of his professional boxing career against WBO junior welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov on June 14th, it’s no act and it’s no surprise.
Why? Because it’s only the biggest fight of his professional boxing career. In his previous combat sports life as a pro kickboxer, the New Yorker made it to the top of the mountain twice, winning ISKA and WKA championships, and while they’re two different sports, preparing for and winning a world title fight cuts across all rule sets.
“Those were dream fights for me, there was a lot of personal pressure and outside pressure related to those fights and I was a much younger man then,” said the 30-year-old from Huntington, who won his kickboxing belts at 21 and 23. “So just dealing with that and going through a training camp a hundred percent focused, I’ve been there before. Training camp is going great this time, and this fight - and really any kind of fight of this magnitude - is all about mental focus and preparation, and I feel like everything is right on track.”
It’s what you hear from 99% of the challengers out there, but from the mouth of Algieri, it sounds convincing and you believe him. But at the same time, he’s not one of those who talks about a world title fight as being just another fight. He knows that it’s far from that. [Click Here To Read More]
Why? Because it’s only the biggest fight of his professional boxing career. In his previous combat sports life as a pro kickboxer, the New Yorker made it to the top of the mountain twice, winning ISKA and WKA championships, and while they’re two different sports, preparing for and winning a world title fight cuts across all rule sets.
“Those were dream fights for me, there was a lot of personal pressure and outside pressure related to those fights and I was a much younger man then,” said the 30-year-old from Huntington, who won his kickboxing belts at 21 and 23. “So just dealing with that and going through a training camp a hundred percent focused, I’ve been there before. Training camp is going great this time, and this fight - and really any kind of fight of this magnitude - is all about mental focus and preparation, and I feel like everything is right on track.”
It’s what you hear from 99% of the challengers out there, but from the mouth of Algieri, it sounds convincing and you believe him. But at the same time, he’s not one of those who talks about a world title fight as being just another fight. He knows that it’s far from that. [Click Here To Read More]
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