By Jim Calfa: Teddy Atlas sees Errol Spence Jr. easily outboxing Yordenis Ugas this Saturday night in their welterweight unification fight on Showtime PPV at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Atlas says IBF/WBC 147-lb champion Spence (27-0, 21 KOs) will use his jab to totally neutralize WBA champion Ugas’s ability to land his counter punches as he had in his recent victory over Manny Pacquiao.
As Atlas points out, Pacquiao’s reckless style of fighting was the perfect fit for the counter-punching Ugas to land his shots.
However, Spence is a totally different type of fighter than Pacquiao, and he won’t give Ugas the same opportunities to land his shots.
Even if Spence does give the 35-year-old Ugas chances to land, he’s going to find himself in a firefight that he’s not equipped to win due to his work rate and power don’t measure up.
“Ugas won the fight, but it was close. Pacquiao made it closer than a lot of people want to admit,” said Teddy Atlas on The Fight. “The reason it was close is because Pacquiao outworked him.
“I don’t think he’s going to outwork Spence, so that means he’s going to have to do what he did with Pacquiao. He’s going to have to land the cleaner, harder punches to affect him,” said Atlas about Ugas.
Although Ugas beat Pacquiao, it wasn’t the type of dominating performance that suggested that he would have won if the Filipino star wasn’t coming off a two-year layoff.
It was a mistake on Pacquiao’s part not to take a tune-up before returning to the ring after a 25-month layoff.
“First of all, Spence has a really good chin,” said Atlas. “A counter puncher [like Ugas] needs to be in a certain environment to be at their best. The environment he had with Pacquiao was the right environment.
“A counter puncher needs his opponent to be aggressive and recklessly aggressive sometimes. That’s Pacquiao. He got away with it because Pacquiao was so fast, but as he got older, he was a little slower and he paid a price in the Ugas fight in getting hit with right hands. Right hands are the southpaw killer,” said Atlas.
Spence can make this fight as easy as his victory over the counter-puncher Mikey Garcia in March 2019. In that fight, Errol stood on the outside and jabbed the smaller Mikey the entire fight, giving him very few opportunities to land his counter shots.
If Spence does the same thing against Ugas, this fight will be a one-sided affair, and a boring one as well.
“Ugas had that and he was able to time Pacquiao all night long with the right hand,” said Atlas. “Again, Pacquiao gave him what he needed by being aggressive. He’s not going to get that help from Spence.
“As big and as strong Spence is, he’s cautiously aggressive. Yeah, he’s aggressive, but behind the jab. Everyone thought Mikey Garcia would have a chance against the bigger Spence by countering him. No, he didn’t. Do you know why? Because Spence out-jabbed him.
“When a guy is using his jab from the right distance, it’s very hard for a counter puncher to be on his A-game because he needs something to counter.
“When you’re jabbing and staying at range and controlling with a jab, you’re not giving a counter puncher anything to counter. That’s how I see this fight. Spence will not give Ugas what Pacquiao gave him. A target just coming in where he was able to time him coming in with counters.
“He’s [Spence] going to hit him with jabs. He’s going to come in behind that jab, that southpaw jab, and it’s going to take a lot of Ugas’s game away.
“I’m picking Spence because of what I just said. I think it’ll go the distance. Another thing about Spence that bodes well for him. Spence is good defensively, Spence is a good body puncher.
“You can break down a man’s defense a little when you go to the body. I’m going with Spence,” said Atlas.
