Freddie Roach and Buboy Fernandez reviewed tapes of Yordenis Ugas’ bouts separately but came up with similar conclusions. 

The Cuban-born resident of Miami, Florida is good but not in the legion of Errol Spence Jr., who was supposed to be Manny Pacquiao’s opponent on Saturday, August 21 (Sunday, August 22, Philippine time) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Roach, Pacquiao’s Hall of Famer longtime trainer who watched Ugas’ fight tapes at his Wild Card Boxing Club here on Wednesday, and Fernandez, Pacquiao’s Filipino trainer, shared the observation that Ugas doesn’t know how to exploit his height advantage.

Ugas, the 35-year-old World Boxing Association (WBA) welterweight champion, is 5-foot-9 but looks smaller as he tends to slouch against smaller opponents.

“He (Ugas) isn’t as good as the other guy,” Roach said. “He doesn’t make good use of his height.”

Disappointed by the withdrawal of Spence from his fight with Pacquiao (62-7-39 knockouts) due to a retinal tear on the left eye, Roach admitted he would have preferred Spence but “shit happens.”

According to Fernandez, Polangui, Albay’s vice mayor, he watched Ugas’ fights against southpaws like Pacquiao on YouTube and found out that the Olympic bronze medalist usually counters his opponent’s left like Mexican icon Juan Manuel Marquez.

What Fernandez likes is the 35-year-old Ugas, 24-6 with 12 knockouts is willing to engage toe-to-toe.

Fernandez also noted Ugas possesses some power and is talented just like many Cuban fighters so Pacquiao can’t take him for granted.

With only 10 days to go before fight night, Fernandez also thinks there’s no need to hire orthodox sparring partners as they’re already in the late stages of preparations.

“The present crop would do,” said Fernandez. “We’re already on the tapering stage anyway. We’ll spar for six rounds on Thursday, then four or three on Saturday. We’ll just sweat it out and wrap up training on Monday.”

Gibbons, who watched Ugas’ fights with Roach before Pacquiao’s arrival at Wild Card, noted Ugas is flat-footed and should be an open target for Pacquiao. – Rappler.com