Spence wins the WBA welterweight title from Yordenis Ugas after a TKO stoppage.

By: Emmanuel Mendez

After suffering a retina tear last August, Spence returned with an impressive TKO win against the now former WBA champion, Yordhis Ugas. The AT&T stadium witnessed Spence`s speed and accuracy of punches in his return fight.  

The quickness of Spence`s jab threw off Ugas quite a bit early in the fight and the power punches by Spence would often land. Ugas did well to remain composed and looking for slight openings for body shots.

Although Ugas tried avoiding and slipping punches, Spence`s accuracy of punches was winning him the fight, by gaining points during the first two rounds. Ugas would often catch Spence off guard and land some powerful punches, but the inconsistent number of punches landed wasn’t doing him any favors.

The aggressive Spence was weakening the Cuban fighter with multiple body shots. Ugas looked to be slowing down a couple of rounds but kept on going and on his feet. 

This trend of accuracy landed by Spence would change in Round 6, when Ugas wobbled the WBC and IBF champion. The Cuban landed a strong right hook that wobbled Spence which caused him trouble to recover. 

The Cuban would then land a beautiful combo that sent Spence to the ropes but didn’t fall and wasn’t a knockdown. 

Round 7 showed that Spence did not take that shot lightly and continued to punish Ugas with more power punches on the body and catching the Cuban with more right hooks and some uppercuts. Ugas would show a little bit of power that hurt Spence again, but the American continued to create damage on Ugas and remained relentless. 

The powerful uppercuts that landed did wobble Ugas at times and led to the finish in the 10^th round. 

In the 10^th round, Spence would connect more right hooks and uppercuts, and the Ugas team would notice a lot of swelling on the face of the Cuban fighter. The fight was stopped at 1:44 in the 10^th round and after a doctor decided that Ugas couldn’t continue, the referee, Laurence Cole, stopped the fight and gave the victory to Spence. 

Ugas was protesting the stoppage, but the swelling of his right eye was clear and would have affected his performance if the fight were to continue. Spence was awarded the TKO win and unified his WBC and IBF title with the WBA title. 

Regardless of the TKO, the scorecards were in favor of Spence winning almost all rounds except round 6. The final scores were 88 to 83 in favor of Spence which showed off his dominant performance.

Errol Spence Jr`s record is now 28-0 and remains undefeated. Spence calls out WBO champion Terence Crawford for an undisputed championship fight next after his victory.

“Everybody knows who I want next, I want Terence Crawford next; Terrence I’m coming for that motherf*cking belt”.