By Geno McGahee
It’s hard to believe that Manny Pacquiao, 62-7-2, 39 KO’s, is still fighting. Not only that, he’s fighting the best in the game and was set to take on Errol Spence, but Spence would claim injury and now we have the very capable, Yordenis Ugas, 26-4, 12 KO’s, stepping in.
Pacquiao has not fought since his victory over Keith Thurman in July of 2019, but ring rust may not be that big of an issue. According to reports, he has been doing incredible in training and some have even claimed that Spence pulled out of the fight because his camp was going poorly while Manny was having a great one. This may or may not be true, but the PacMan should be on his game tonight.
Ugas has never clearly lost, with all four of his defeats being close decisions. His most notable came against Shawn Porter in a fight that he arguably won. Ugas will stay in there and throw punches. He is a good body puncher and looks to counter. He will not run from Manny.
For Ugas, the best option is that father time finally catches up with Pacquiao and that he is a step slower than usual, giving him the opportunities to outwork the PacMan and win the decision, but getting a decision might be tough for Ugas as he found out in the past.
Pacquiao will come out and look to outwork Ugas, using his in and out style to land with some regularity. Ugas might find the PacMan too quick to counter and the rounds will go by. I suspect that Manny will cruise to a lopsided decision without sustaining much damage. Unfortunately for Ugas, he’s nearly custom made for Manny. He’s slower, he is pretty stationary and he waits for counters but when he goes to counter, Manny won’t be there.
The bad thing that nobody wants is a head butt stoppage. I make this a serious possibility with the way that Ugas leans forward and the southpaw versus orthodox matchup. Hopefully those shelling out money for this PPV will not have to endure that and get a good fight out of it. With the very mediocre undercard and this now the main event, you would think that the price of the PPV would drop dramatically, but this is boxing and they don’t mind fleecing the fans.
My prediction is Pacquiao by wide decision win, 117-111, and Ugas never really getting anything going the entire fight.
