LAS VEGAS – Yordenis Ugas is Cuban like Guillermo Rigondeaux. But the similarity stops there.
The 35-year-old Ugas will come to fight and engage Manny Pacquiao in their welterweight title showdown Saturday, and won’t be doing a lot of running just like what Rigondeaux did in his championship bout with Jonhriel Casimero as they fought for the WBO bantamweight belt last week.
No running for Ugas
Trainer Ismael Salas guaranteed Ugas is going to be active against his Filipino challenger and won’t backed down from giving Pacquaio a competitive fight at the To-Mobile Arena.
“You will never see Ugas running away. He never does,” quipped Salas, who ironically, previously trained Rigondeaux himself along with other world champions such as Yuriorkis Gamboa, Danny Green, Kazuto Ioka, among others.
“Ugas is a very competitive fighter. He’s always eager to fight.”
Rigondeaux drew flak from refusing to engage Casimero in the middle of the ring as he mostly tried to elude the power of the reigning bantamweight champion by just bouncing around and picking his punches the entire 12-round bout at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
The two-time Olympic gold medal winner eventually lost by split decision against Casimero in a fight that established a boxing record in futility with just a total of 91 combined landed punches.
That won’t certainly be the case when Pacquiao and Ugas do their business in the ring.
“Pacquiao comes from a lot of angles, but so does Ugas,” said Salas. “Ugas has mastered fighting southpaws, so we'll’ see who is going to be able to see their opponent’s punches coming.”
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