Yordenis Ugás Hernández vs. Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao

Wow, the news of Errol Spence, Jr. withdrawing from his scheduled WBC and IBF welterweight titles with an eye injury is now three full days old, and nobody has replaced the poll thread with a new one for the match taking place instead? Y'all sleeping at the wheel.

August 21st at T-Mobile Arena in Vegas on Fox PPV. The vacant WBA super world title at welterweight is on the line, first defense of Ugás (who captured the vacant 'regular' WBA title at 147lbs nearly one full year ago versus Abel Ramos, and was elevated to super champ when this fight was announced. Pacquiao was the previous super champ after defeating Keith Thurman, but was stripped for inactivity.

Both men come in with equal training camps behind them. Pac had been training for a chance to contend for some different hardware at welter, and Ugás was originally prepping for a defense versus Argentine puncher Fabián Andrés "TNT" Maidana on the undercard.

 

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This is a worse style for him than Spence, honestly.

 

I have always found Ugás' style boring, ugly, and off-putting (and this is coming from someone that is usually highler tolerant of Cuban boxers: massive appreciator of El Feo and Mantequilla, pretty big fan as well of Erislandy Lara, Dio Hurtado, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Joel Casamayor, many of the current and recent amateur non-defectors, and to a lesser extent guys like Yuniel Dorticós, Yoan Pablo Hernández, Odlanier Solís, Juan Carlos Gómez etc...pretty much the only Cubans aside from Yordenis that I expressly don't like have been the whole Barthelemy family and Richar Abril) - while I've been slowly warming up to GrandPac in the years since his obnoxiously rabid fan base cooled off from the peak of their flame wars against the "Joy Boys" and found myself in his corner far more often than in his prime (when I was firmly Team MAB/Dinamata) ...so if he pulls this off, especially by savage KO, nobody's going to be happier than me.

I just fear we're going to see him look really stupid and lose a wide UD, this one not even close like Horn was, and that it will spell the pathetic sputtering end of his time shining under the big PPV spotlight, instead of at least going out with a valiant bang on his shield like might've happened versus Spence.