News comes in as I am writing this column that Errol Spence is out for the Manny Pacquiao mega-fight next week as he suffered a torn retina in his left eye, disqualifying him from participating in the August 21 event.
Replacing him will be Yordenis Ugas of Cuba who has a record of 26-4, 12KOs.
Bummer.
UGAS. To be fair, Ugas is no scrub. He has a fairly impressive amateur career, having won a bronze medal in the 2008 Olympics and was a 2005 AIBA World champion.
In his pro career spanning 11 years, his most notable wins came against Omar Figueroa Jr. and Mike Dallas Jr.
Two of his four losses came early in his career while his third loss was against Amir Imam in 2014 and his last loss came against former world champion Shawn Porter via split decision.
The thing with these Cuban fighters is that they are sometimes shrouded in mystery owing to the nature of their boxing program in their country. And they turn pro a lot older than their counterparts.
Ergo, Ugas is now 35 years of age with only 30 pro fights to his name. In stark contrast, our “Pambansang Kamao” is older at 42 but is just one fight short of 70 bouts.
POWER. On record, prior to this supervening event, I was already predicting Spence to emerge victorious against Pacquiao by decision.
For so many years, the Pacman has continued to elude Father Time’s irrevocable reach but against Spence I thought the combined inactivity and advanced fighting age would prove to be too much to overcome the youth, power and skill set that Spence brought to the table.
Well, we will never know now. But while Ugas is certainly a capable opponent, my problem with his record is his glaring lack of punching power.
With only 12 stoppages in 26 wins, he doesn’t have the requisite torque to be competitive with Manny for 12 grueling rounds.
If you look at all of Manny’s true losses in the past decade, which came against Erik Morales, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez- a common denominator these three had aside from their boxing skills was power. (I say “true” because I think the losses against Jeff Horn and Timothy Bradley were judging travesties.)
Those three fighters could more than hold their own against Manny when it came to punching power thereby deterring the latter from simply buzz-killing through them.
Sure, age will certainly have an effect on Manny in this coming fight, but Ugas’ lack of power will be the determining factor.
It will probably be entertaining and competitive for the first half of the fight, but as soon as Manny starts finding a home for that straight left hand, it will be a TKO loss for the Cuban fighter.
VERBATIM. “Manny isn’t training this hard to say goodbye. It’s to prove he’s still here.” --Freddie Roach (www.dazn.com)
LAST ROUND. It’s on Junjun Caraballe of the MTCC Branch 9 Cebu City who recently celebrated his birthday this week. Cheers!