Notebook: Welterweight great Felix Trinidad backs Ugas to unify titles against Spence

Golovkin talks third fight with Canelo; Goossen gives take on Garcia-Tagoe; Quick hits; Show and tell

Apr 11, 2022

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Yordenis Ugas may be the underdog going into his three-belt welterweight title unification fight with Errol Spence Jr., but Felix “Tito” Trinidad, the all-time great Hall of Fame former unified welterweight champion, thinks he can pull off the victory.

“When I watched the Manny Pacquiao fight, I watched Ugas represent Cuba in an amazing way. I believe that Ugas can emulate what he did against Pacquiao in the fight against Spence,” Trinidad said through an interpreter on a media call with Ugas to discuss the bout. “His speed and precision is going to wow the crowd in this fight.

“Ugas’ best attributes are the ones that are most similar to mine. It’s the conditioning and the mentality. He brings what he works on in training and uses it in the fight so well. He brings that preparation into the ring just like I used to. It makes me believe in him and I know that he’s going to do well. I would tell Ugas to stay close and be on offense. Don’t let Spence come to you instead. The jab with the right and uppercut with the left is the best combination that will work for you.”

Ugas outpointed the legendary eight-division champion Pacquiao to retain his WBA title for the first time on Aug. 21 in Las Vegas to send the Pacman into retirement. The win paved the way for the unification bout with WBC/IBF titleholder Spence, whom he will face in the biggest fight so far this year on Saturday (Showtime PPV and PPV.com, 9 p.m. ET, $74.99) at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, a home region fight for Desoto, Texas’ Spence.

“I did my job against Manny Pacquiao,” Ugas said through an interpreter. “I took the fight on 11 days’ notice. Whatever Spence said about what he would have done against Pacquiao, I’m not concerned. I’m only focused on the challenge that I have against Spence.”

Spence was originally supposed to fight Pacquiao until he was sidelined with an eye injury and Ugas moved up from a defense in the co-feature to face Pacquiao in a fight made on 11 days’ notice.

Trinidad famously — or infamously, depending on your perspective — won a hugely controversial majority decision over Oscar De La Hoya in their 1999 mega fight to unify the IBF and WBC 147-pound titles before moving up in weight and going on to win world titles at junior middleweight and middleweight.

“This is going to be a fight of a champion against a champion. When I fought De La Hoya, I knew that I had to go all out and couldn’t leave anything in the tank,” Trinidad said. “I believe in Ugas and I believe he’s going to make us all proud.

“Errol is a rangy, tall southpaw. Instead of trying to go up against their right hand, I wanted to let a southpaw throw their biggest shot and dodge it, so that I could deliver my most powerful shot. I’d tell Ugas to let Spence throw that left hand and dodge it.”

Ugas is appreciative of Trinidad’s support and recalls watching him fight as a boy.

“This is such a dream come true to be here talking with one of my idols in Felix Trinidad,” Ugas said through an interpreter. “It’s truly amazing. I’m very thankful to be in this position.

“I remember watching Felix when I was a teenager and he fought against De La Hoya. Everyone in Cuba was talking about that one. That fight really blew my mind. It was amazing to watch Felix go toe-to-toe with Oscar. To see Felix achieve something so incredible was a great inspiration.”

Ugas, a Cuban defector, who lives in Miami and trains in Las Vegas, said he has thought about what it would have been like to face Trinidad, who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2014.

“I’m a competitor,” Ugas said. “I would have put my best foot forward in any decade. I would have loved to fight Trinidad and the other fighters of his era. I could have won, I could have lost, but I would have loved to face those challenges.”

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GGG on 3rd Canelo fight

Gennadiy Golovkin’s action-packed ninth-round knockout of Ryota Murata to unify the IBF and WBA middleweight titles on Saturday in Saitama, Japan, secured his spot in a third showdown with rival Canelo Alvarez, against whom he is 0-1-1.

But both decisions — their 2017 split draw that most saw Golovkin as the rightful winner and Alvarez’s 2018 majority decision win to end Golovkin’s historic first middleweight title reign — were highly controversial.

They have a deal in place with DAZN to meet for the third time on Sept. 17, but GGG had to first beat Murata and Alvarez still must defeat light heavyweight titleholder Dmitry Bivol on May 7 in Las Vegas.

After the rousing victory over Murata, Golovkin’s first fight in 14 months, he called a third fight with Alvarez “interesting.”

"Of course, when an opportunity presents itself it's always interesting,” said Golovkin, who has wanted a third fight since losing the rematch and signed with DAZN specifically to secure the bout, though it has taken far longer than it was supposed to. “At the same time, Canelo's fight is taking place in May and that is not going to be an easy fight. So, I suggest we should wait until we get the result of that fight."

Goossen on Garcia win

Trainer Joe Goossen was happy with how Ryan Garcia performed in their first fight together on Saturday night at the Alamodome in San Antonio even if he did not get the knockout most expected.

Garcia (22-0, 18 KOs), who split from trainer Eddy Reynoso in February, returned from 15-month layoff and thoroughly dominated unwilling opponent Emmanuel Tagoe (32-2, 15 KOs) en route to a one-sided unanimous decision in their bout contracted at 139 pounds.

“In between rounds I was just telling him you’ve got to track him down," Goossen said, because Tagoe ran for most of the fight. “He’s not going to engage; you just have to keep the pressure on. (Tagoe is) a tough kid. He only has one loss in the beginning of his career. He’s been on a win streak for a very long time. He has a great chin. He was in great shape and he came here to win. He didn’t comer here to lose.

“But after a while he was not trying to win, he was just trying to survive. Ryan was then trying to track him down and trying to catch him. Tagoe was not being very agreeable and he didn’t engage to fight a lot.”

Garcia and Golden Boy, Garcia’s promoter, would like for him to be more active this year, perhaps with another two fights. It remains to be seen what he will do next, but Goossen, who has also managed fighters, said he is strictly Garcia’s trainer.

“Who will we fight next? I take a back seat to all of that,” Goossen said. “They don’t come to the gym and tell me how to train my guys and I don’t go to their office and tell them how to make fights. When they throw something at me I say that sounds good to me and we go to work.”

Quick hits

Alycia Baumgardner (11-1, 7 KOs), 27, of Bingham Farms, Michigan, will defend her WBC women's junior lightweight title for the first time against Edith Soledad Matthysse (17-11-1, 1 KO), 41, of Argentina, on the Conor Benn-Chris van Heerden undercard on Saturday (DAZN, 2 p.m. ET) in Manchester, England, in a late addition to the show, Matchroom Boxing announced. Baumgardner won the title by fourth-round knockout from the favored and then-unbeaten Terri Harper, of England, in November in Sheffield, England. A Baumgardner win could propel her into a unification fight with WBA titlist Hyun Mi Choi (19-0-1, 5 KOs), 31, of South Korea.

Matchroom Boxing also announced three of its prospects — middleweight Austin “Ammo” Williams, welterweight Reshat Mati and light heavyweight Khail Coe — will all box on the undercard of undisputed women’s lightweight champion Katie Taylor’s fight with seven-division champion Amanda Serrano on April 30 (DAZN) at Madison Square Garden in New York. Williams (10-0, 8 KOs), 25, of Houston, will face Chordale Booker (17-0, 7 KOs), 30, a southpaw from Stamford, Connecticut, in a 10-rounder; Mati (11-0, 7 KOs), 23, of Staten Island, New York, will face Joe Eli Hernandez (12-1, 10 KOs), 25, of Brownsville, Texas, in an eight-rounder; and Coe (2-0-1, 2 KOs), 25, of Jersey City, New Jersey, will face William Langston (6-2, 4 KOs), 27, of Kenosha, Wisconsin, in a six-rounder.

Show and tell

After Oscar De La Hoya defended the WBC junior welterweight title by dominating decision over Miguel Angel Gonzalez, who was 41-0 entering their fight, he moved up to welterweight seeking a world title in a fourth division. Standing in De La Hoya’s way was the all-time great Pernell Whitaker, who needed to make a monumental comeback to knock out Diosbelys Hurtado in the 11th round to retain the WBC 147-pound title and preserve the already-signed mega HBO PPV fight with De La Hoya. While Whitaker, the former longtime pound-for-pound king, was slightly past his best days he was still a formidable opponent with slick moves and supreme defense. He gave De La Hoya, who was the favorite, all he could handle, frustrating him to no end. Whitaker even scored a flash knockdown in the ninth round when he caught the Golden Boy off balance with a left hand that forced to touch his right glove to the canvas.

In the end, however, the judges favored the more aggressive and harder-hitting De La Hoya and awarded him a unanimous decision — 116-110, 116-110 and 115-111 — that many viewed as controversial. For what it’s worth, I also had De La Hoya winning (watching on TV as this was three years before my time covering boxing). The fight was on April 12, 1997 — 25 years ago on Tuesday. Here is a scarce site poster, which I have had shrink-wrapped, in my collection.

Trinidad-De La Hoya photo: John Gurzinski/Getty Images; Golovkin-Murata photo: Naoki Fukuda; Goossen/Garcia photo: Tom Hogan/Golden Boy

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