Via Chris Williams: Yordenis Ugas said his next bout will be against WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford if he successfully beats IBF/WBC champion Errol Spence Jr this Saturday night in the title match their on Showtime PPV.
Of course, it’s easy for WBA champion Ugas (27-4, 12 KOs) to say he’ll take on Crawford next as he’s a much weaker underdog this Saturday against Spence ( 27-0, 21 KOs).
In terms of negotiating teamfights with Crawford, Ugas has a better chance than Spence. With all the trophies Spence will have and the fact that he’s a proven PPV star, negotiating a deal with Crawford will be impossible.
The problem is that Crawford believes his #1 pound-for-pound position means he deserves a 50-50 split with Spence, and that’s not going to happen. At best, Crawford can get a 60-40 deal with Spence, and if that’s not good enough, the fight won’t happen.
It would be much easier to strike a deal for a fight with Crawford if Ugas win on Saturday, but that’s unlikely to be a talking point.
Ugas is too basic, too old, and too limited in terms of attack to combine with Spence. Chris Williams considered this fight a completely inappropriate match on Saturday night, with Spence hitting Ugas like a drum, making him look like an old man in the ring.
This will be a much easier battle for Spence than his last two games against Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter.
“That is my path. If I win, I’ll fight Crawford,” Yordenis Ugas told Fight Hub TV in his plan if he defeats Errol Spence Jr. on Saturday.
“It was another great fight. I want to fight the best. If I win, I want to go that route,” Ugas continued about his plans to take on the next WBO champion Crawford.
“It hasn’t happened yet due to many things,” Ugas said when asked why Spence didn’t confront Crawford.
If the boxing public believed that Ugas had a chance of winning, there would be more interest in it.
The fact that fans are barely paying attention to the Spence-Ugas fight is a clear sign that they don’t see Ugas as the one capable of defeating the real Spence.
Ugas looked unremarkable against Pacquiao last August. Watching that fight, I thought Pacquiao would put Ugas to shame if he was two years younger and still active. It was more a case of Pacquiao being shot than Ugas doing anything special during the fight.
Like I said, Ugas’ chances of winning the match are very small and nonexistent. The only shot the 35-year-old Ugas won was if Spence suffered another eye injury, and even then, he would still likely be too much for the aging Cuban.
Ugas looked easy to beat in his final fight with 42-year-old Manny Pacquiao, and the only reason he won was that the Filipino star was about to be out of action for 25 months. If Pacquiao had taken the initiative, he would have really beaten Ugas.
“I think it would be very competitive with a good boxer,” Ugas said of the fight against Spence. “Our styles will complement each other to make a good fight. I expect a tough match where I have to find the stops to win.
“I have to go out, perform, and find a plan-A, B, & C. Everything will depend on my will and my heart. That would be the difference.
“I think it would be something big to win this war,” Yordenis said. “It will be something big for my career, my community and my message. We worked hard to get this win.
“I spent many months thinking about this war. Now we have a plan for a tough fight. I just put on weight on Fridays,” Ugas said.
