Can Chris Algieri Become the Next Cinderella Man?

Chris Algieri eats the same meals every day of the week, every week of the year.

"Wild salmon, pan seared with black pepper and horseradish—that's my Monday," he says. "Tuesday is roast chicken and potatoes. Wednesday is spaghetti and meatballs. Thursday is turkey burger and salad. Friday is sushi. Saturday is a white fish. Sunday is steak."

We're talking after an early training session at Belmore Kickboxing Academy, an unassuming gym located amid a stretch of strip malls and pastrami shops a half-hour drive from Huntington, Long Island, where Algieri was born. Huntington has the reputation of a wealthy town, a suburban wonderland where bankers and lawyers come to stud, not the kind of place that produces prizefighters, but there's a lot about Algieri that's unusual by boxing's standards. For one, he holds a master's degree in nutrition, and once had designs on going to medical school.

Then again, until recently, Algieri was an unknown fighter, desperate to get on television. Now, he's part of a fairytale match-up with one of the greatest boxers of his generation, a person who has been talked about as a candidate for the presidency of the Philippines: Manny Pacquiao.

Algieri's out-of-nowhere story is precisely what makes the fight, which will be held on November 22 in boxing's new promised land, Macau. He was selected by promoter Bob Arum after afrustrating search for a suitable opponent, and he was chosen both for his his Rocky Balboa narrative and his lack of experience against world-class fighters.

Another thing about Algieri: he comes cheap. He's contracted to make $1.2 million for the fight, which is a fortune to him, but about the same amount Pacquiao spends each fight on tickets for his friends.

"People have this perception that fighters need to come from these tough places, but that isn't true," Algieri says. It's the middle of August, well before his international press tour with Pacquiao kicked off this week, and the enormity of the coming moment has yet to sink in. Wearing black spandex pants that reach down to his ankles and a backwards baseball cap, Algieri talks about how accustomed we are to the tales of boxers who are born dead, fighters who are raised in jungle huts or isolated Siberian villages, fighters whose parents beat them, leave them, orphan them.

He was a happy child in Huntington, an overachiever. If his older brother, now a New York cop, didn't beat on him so much as a kid, he would have never had to learn how to protect himself.

But he did. Algieri went to a martial arts school to learn self defense. He became so good at punching and kicking his older brother off of him that he transferred those skills to kickboxing tournaments. By age 24, along with earning his educational degrees, Algieri had already accomplished all he could as a kickboxer. He'd won international tournaments. He'd turned pro, winning 20 straight bouts, no defeats. And he still hadn't made a real living off of it..

"Kickboxing's great, but there just isn't any money in it," he says.

So, despite the protests of his mother, Algieri turned to boxing. He toiled in anonymity, fighting for purses so meager they failed to cover his training expenses. He couldn't earn enough to afford his own place. Algieri still lives in the basement of his parents' house in Huntington. After his fifteenth victory as a pro boxer, Algieri recalled being approached by a fan.

"When you turning pro?" the fan asked. The question nearly prompted Algieri to retire. He'd spent his entire life in the ring, had never lost, and couldn't get noticed. Turn pro?

Still, he kept on training, and it paid off. Earlier this year, Algieri was matched against Emmanuel Taylor, a talented, hard-hitting 140-pounder from Maryland. The fight was broadcast on ESPN, the first time Algieri had ever appeared on television. Algieri used his jab, timing, and movement to outbox Taylor over 10 rounds, winning an upset unanimous decision. Algieri was so impressive in the fight he attracted the eyes of the sport's top promoters, and was selected shortly after as a stepping stone for the Siberian WBO lighweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov.

Few pundits gave Algieri any shot against Provodnikov, who declared before the fight that "I am the hunter when I am in the ring." But after getting knocked down twice in the first round, Algieri peeled himself off the canvas, battled an eye so swollen it closed shut, and jabbed his way to a razor thin split decision at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn. He earned a purse of $100,000 for his efforts. After expenses and manager's fees, that was barely enough to pay off his student loans.

Arum took notice of the win. Calls were made and contracts signed to ensure Algieri's Cinderella moment. And the Cinderella story is exactly what got Algieri into this fight in the first place. He does not have the resume to justify a fight with Pacquiao, nor does he appear to be the caliber of fighter who could build the resume to earn this fight on merit alone. Macau is the perfect setting for him: With a fight so far away, who is really going to complain about a lousy match-up?

Algieri, meanwhile, isn't changing anything about his regimen. His trainer is Keith Trimble, a football player turned kickboxer who has coached Algieri since he was a teenager. He'll work with his sparring partners. He'll stick with the same meals, so long as he can find the ingredients, because there is a design behind what Algieri does.

"Sunday is red meat because I want to go into my training week not feeling depleted," he says. "And Wednesday, pasta and meatballs, is all for carbs, so I don't feel drained as the week progress. As the week ends, I do sushi for recovery. I don't train on Saturday, so Saturday is a light meal like whitefish, normally flounder."

One thing Algieri is planning to change is his living situation.He wants to move out of the family basement. He's looking for places to buy, a home of his own, maybe a condo along the Gulf Coast to escape the New York winters. But first, he has to step into the ring against Manny Pacquiao. He's read stories about the fight that place him as a 15-1 underdog, but those figures don't bother him.

"It's paper and championships aren't won on paper," Algieri says. "Championships are won on intangibles, and I got that."