Yordenis Ugas says he was upset that referee Lawrence Cole chose to stop the fight in the tenth round last Saturday night in his unification match against IBF/WBC welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
WBA champion Ugas (27-5, 12 KOs) had the fight beaten out of him by Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) by the tenth round, and his eye had swollen shut. Under the circumstances, the referee Cole did the right thing by marching Ugas over to the ringside doctor for him to examine his eye.
Ugas had his window to win the fight in the sixth round when he appeared to buzz Spence, who seemed to lose his wits for a second.
Although Spence claimed afterward that he thought he heard the referee call a timeout after his mouthpiece had been knocked out, it was obvious that he was hurt from the right hand that Ugas had nailed him with.
“I feel sad; I trained really hard for this fight,” said Ugas after the fight with Spence. “All my respect to Errol Spence. He’s a great champion.
“The referee stopped the fight, but I wanted to keep going to the end. I definitely had a chance to win the fight in the sixth round, but he recuperated well.”
Ugas had some success in the early rounds with his counter shots that he continually was catching Spence with. But the problem was, that Ugas wasn’t throwing nearly enough punches, and the numerous body shots that Spence was landing wore him down like a battery.
If Ugas could have averaged 70 punches per round, he would have had a better chance of winning, but he was never going to beat Spence counter punching. That goes for Terence Crawford as well. He’s not going to beat Spence by counterpunching.
Spence landed 216 of 784 shots for a 28% connect rate. For his part, Ugas landed 96 of 541 for an 18% connect rate.
“Everybody knows who I want next. I want Terence Crawford,” said Spence after the fight. “That’s the fight that I want.”
Don’t be surprised if the Spence vs. Crawford fight turns out to be an anti-climatic affair that is a one-sided match with Errol wearing the Nebraska native down in the same way he did with Ugas. Crawford hasn’t had one test since moving up to the welterweight division, and you can’t count the played-out gatekeeper Shawn Porter. He wasn’t the same fighter after his war with Spence in 2019.
“Errol Spence, congratulations. Great fight,” said Terence Crawford on Twitter. “Now the real fight happens. No more talk, no more side of the street. Let’s go!”
