By Mark Whicker

Bob Arum said Tuesday he plans to promote Chris Algieri as "the modern-day Gene Tunney" when Algieri meets Manny Pacquiao on Nov. 22, in Macau.

First, the Top Rank chief might have to remind people who Tunney was.

Tunney was heavyweight champion from 1926-28 and was most famous for two victories over Jack Dempsey, one of which came in the "Long Count" fight of 1927. Beyond that, Tunney was a friend of playwright George Bernard Shaw and delivered lectures on William Shakespeare at Yale.

Algieri has a master's degree from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in health science. But he didn't take the cautious approach to his own health against Ruslan Provodnikov, comine back to win  a decision after taking a first-round beating that included a shot to his eye.

That put him in line to meet Pacquiao.

"That's how we're going to present this fight over here," Arum told BoxingScene of the Tunney parallels. "Obviously most of the business will be done on that side of the world, and Zou Shimming (the 2-time Olympic gold medalist from China) will be going for a title on that card."

Arum said the November card will be the first test of China's ability to sustain pay-per-view boxing business.

"The foundation is in place," Arum said. "We've put in weekly boxing programs in China and  we'll see what happens from there."

Elsewhere, Arum took note of Canelo Alvarez's close victory over Erislandy Lara Saturday and is fully on board with a match with Miguel Cotto.

"We're very interested in making that happen," Arum said. "it's a case of sensible people coming to a meeting of the minds."

Referring, of course, to the fact that Arum would be dealing with Oscar De La Hoya and not former Golden Boy president Richard Schaefer.

Canelo has a date in November and Cotto in December, so Arum said a possible Cotto-Canelo matchup would not happen until 2015.

Mark Whicker has been a sports columnist in Southern California for 27 years.