By Keith Idec

Chris Algieri’s comeback will continue against Danny Gonzalez on January 18.

krikya360.com has learned that the former WBO junior welterweight champion will square off against Gonzalez in a 10-round fight that night in The Theater at Madison Square Garden. That bout will mark Algieri’s second fight in seven weeks.

DAZN will stream the Algieri-Gonzalez bout as part of the Demetrius Andrade-Artur Akavov undercard.

Algieri ended a 2½-year layoff, caused mostly by a contractual conflict with promoter Joe DeGuardia, on November 30 in his hometown of Huntington, New York. The 34-year-old Algieri (22-3, 8 KOs) won every round on two of the three judges’ scorecards that night and won a lopsided, 10-round unanimous decision over Angel Hernandez (14-12-2, 9 KOs).

Before beating Hernandez, Algieri hadn’t fought since IBF welterweight champ Errol Spence Jr. (23-0, 20 KOs) stopped him in the fifth round of their April 2016 bout at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. That defeat convinced Algieri to move back down to the 140-pound division, in which he won a world title by edging rugged Russian Ruslan Provodnikov by split decision in June 2014 at Barclays Center.

The 28-year-old Gonzalez (17-1-1, 7 KOs), of Woodhaven, New York, is an incremental step up in competition from Hernandez. His lone loss came when he was stopped by Danny O’Conner (30-3, 11 KOs), who’s not a puncher, in the third round of their November 2017 match in Uncasville, Connecticut.

Gonzalez is 3-0 since suffering that defeat to O’Connor.

If Algieri beats Gonzalez, promoter Eddie Hearn has said it’s possible Algieri could challenge Maurice Hooker (25-0-3, 17 KOs) for his 140-pound title five weeks later at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. Hooker holds the WBO junior welterweight title Algieri once owned.

Hearn plans to stage a DAZN card at that venue February 23. Algieri, a popular Long Island boxer, would help sell tickets to that event.

That card could be headlined by IBF light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev and another popular Long Island boxer, Joe Smith Jr. Recent reports out of Russia have indicated Beterbiev (13-0, 13 KOs) hasn’t committed to facing Smith (24-2, 20 KOs), thus that fight might not take place February 23.

Beyond the possible Hooker-Algieri and Beterbiev-Smith matches, that February 23 show likely will include a light heavyweight bout between England’s Callum Johnson (17-1, 12 KOs) and Sean Monaghan (29-2, 17 KOs). Monaghan also is a ticket-seller from nearby Long Beach, New York.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for krikya360.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.