The situation regarding the WBA welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao and new ‘regular’ champion Yordenis Ugas continues to confuse.
WBA covered the circumstance in a recent article entitled: Heartbreaking to watch Yordenis Ugas celebrate when he’s not champ – Manny Pacquiao is.
As explained, Pacquiao is the WBA ‘super’ title-holder to the regular version held by Ugas. It comes after Ugas defeated Abel Ramos.
Ugas has been all over social media, celebrating the fact he believes he’s reached the pinnacle of the sport. Sadly for the Cuban, many don’t see it that way.
Pacquiao owns the main strap, with Ugas grasping the secondary version. Doubling up has led to questions as to whether Ugas is a world champion or not.
Add to that the fact the WBA have an interim belt-holder in Jamal James and a WBA ‘Gold’ champion to boot, it’s all very confusing.
Even unified welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. is finding it hard to keep up.
“I don’t know what’s what. So Manny is super champ and Ugas regular champ?” – he asked, before reeling off a series of wonders.
“Do every sanctioning body have a regular and super champion?”
“Are the fees the same percentage?”
“So can someone get all the “secondary belts” and be undisputed or nah?
“How Porter get ranked one in the WBA and one of my belts? I just beat him.”
Well, in a nutshell, Pacquiao is the super champion due to his reputation. But Ugas is not able to fight for a unified title due to his belt being the lesser of the two.
Ugas is basically in position as a mandatory. He has to beat Pacquiao in order to unify. If he attempted to unify the WBA ‘regular’ title, he’d be stripped as soon as winning the other organization’s crown.
BEATING MANNY PACQUIAO
Every sanctioning body doesn’t have a ‘regular and ‘super’ champion: only the WBA and WBC deal in secondary belts.
Although the WBO has recently and quietly unveiled the ‘WBO Global’ strap to even more head-scratching.
Only the IBF, one of the titles Spence currently holds, has adhered to the fans’ wishes only to have one champion.
With this many belts in circulation, it is tough to keep up, even for a world champion like Spence.
The American is looking into who he needs to defeat to claim a third belt. And that would be an individual called Manny Pacquiao.
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