Ruslan Provodnikov was being lined up to fight Manny Pacquiao when he was matched with Chris Algieri to give him a final win.In 2014 the ‘Siberian Rocky’ Provodnikov was recognised as relentlessly aggressive and among the world’s most dangerous punchers. Algieri earned his date with destiny against Pacquiao, but it was far from easyGettyHe also, perhaps more relevantly, was rumoured to have knocked the great Pacquiao down while they sparred at the revered Wild Card Gym in LA. The popular Algieri – as a consequence of a career-best victory over Emanuel Taylor – was identified as a suitable opponent capable of delivering what Top Rank needed to make Pacquiao-Provodnikov at a time when hopes of the super fight between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather were dwindling. Algieri, however, detected an opportunity to transform the career he had so nearly walked away from through a frustration that defining fights had been out of his reach.“It was said that Manny Pacquiao would give his sparring partners $1,000 if they could drop him,” Algieri, 30 years old the night he fought Provodnikov at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, told Talksport. “Ruslan apparently dropped him. There was this rivalry brewing, and a lot of money in the fight. “Ruslan was a vicious, brutal guy – even in the gym. He looked destructive [in his previous fight, when beating] Mike Alvarado. They needed a marketable guy – I was 19-0.“When I first knew the fight was going to happen I was watching videos of him. I was white as a ghost. ‘He’s got faster hands than people give him credit for; he closes the gap really well; he’s brutally strong; so confident in his durability that he’ll punch with you; he’ll get hit two or three times just to hit you.’ “I watched him reconfigure people’s faces over and over. I’m okay saying that I was scared when I was first watching him, signing to fight, because the Chris Algieri who signs the contract and the one that walks to the ring are different people.”Algieri was widely considered a significant underdog when their date of June 14, 2014 was first announced. He regardless was an undefeated, clean-living fighter who had absorbed minimal damage during the course of his previous 19 contests, and was entering his biggest fight so close to where he grew up in Long Island, New York.Pacquiao was being eyed for a huge fight against Provodnikov but it collapsedSean Michael Ham/TGB“I did my training camp in Las Vegas – it was the first time I had money to spend and live in another place,” he continued. “Our mantra for camp was, ‘And the new’. Everything was around becoming the new [WBO super-lightweight] champion. “I had a lot of people come watch me – Shawn Porter and his father came by – and they’d sparred with Ruslan and gave me some advice. For the very first time I felt like I was in that fraternity of world-class boxers. “I always stay off my phone on fight day, but I didn’t – and I see a tweet that the ring’s the smallest you can possibly have for a world-title fight. My heart dropped, but I tucked it away. “I read that and, I don’t remember how soon after, my coach [Tim Lane] calls me. ‘Hey champ, I just bounced around the ring at the Barclays to check it out – it’s just as big as the one we had in Vegas, we’re good, baby.’ I’d already seen the tweet, so I knew he was lying to me, but I knew what he was trying to do. “Everything [else] was bigger and spectacular and everything I’d dreamed of. Warming up, we were super confident. We knew the game plan – move him; jab him; spin him; touch his body, for the first six rounds – we knew we were gonna win. “I’m walking out to the ring – low and behold, who grabs me before going out? [Fellow New Yorker and future co-commentator] Paulie Malignaggi. ‘Champ, fight your fight; don’t worry about the crowd; whatever you do, just go out there and be you.’”Star BoxingAlgieri was the man to do it, beating highly rated ‘Siberian Rocky’ in a huge upset[/caption]Algieri’s defining night could scarcely have started more unconvincingly. He was dropped twice in the opening round and suffered a broken nose and broken orbital bone by his right eye.“I felt crisp,” he said. “I made the age-old mistake of wanting to feel his power early, so I felt a right hook on my elbow reverberate through my body. ‘Holy cow – this guy’s as strong as they said.’ “But he was so easy to hit. I threw the left hook with him – mine got there first, but his got there a lot harder. It was the first time I went down as a boxer. By the time I rolled over and stood up my eye was already shutting. “I looked up at the megatron, half-expecting that he had punched a hole in my face, to make sure that my eye and cheekbone was still there. I had my hand up protecting my face, and he cracked me in the rib, and I’m on my knee getting another count.”When he returned to his corner Algieri was calmed by his trainer Tim Lane reminding him that he could still see out of his lead eye.“Now the fight really begins,” he explained. “Game plan’s out the window, because I’m one-handed – I have to keep my right hand pinned to my eye. If I get hit in it again the fight’s over. Then it was just round after round – I went out there and did my job.”Algieri defied a brutal underdog beating to put his name in the Pacquiao conversationGettyAlgieri resisted his career-threatening injuries to box with greater discipline and evade Provodnikov’s aggression, making him miss to the extent that the Russian, also 30, gradually started to tire and slow down.“I wasn’t getting hit much, but my nose was pouring blood, which I was swallowing the entire time,” he said. “My eye was shutting. [But] once we got to round nine, they [the referee and ringside doctor] stopped the ‘One more round’ thing. “At the beginning of round 12 I couldn’t see – I was 100 per cent blind in my right eye. The swelling was too much. “The 12th round was really difficult, because when you have one eye your depth perception’s off – I had a really hard time hitting a guy who’s so easy to hit. “I knew I deserved to win. But because of what was lying ahead for them, I didn’t think they were going to give it to me.”The American was awarded scores of 114-112, 114-112 and 109-117. “It’ll never leave me,” he said. “I get chills talking about it now.”GettyAlgieri went on to lose to Pacquiao but did the unthinkable in securing the fight[/caption]He also resisted medical advice to go straight to the hospital so that his injuries could be treated. He prioritised instead attending the post-fight press conference on what remains his greatest night where Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s long-term promoter, then declared that he wanted to see him fight the celebrated Filipino next. Pacquiao did go on to fight Algieri, whom he dropped six times en route to a stoppage win in 2014.