Yordenis Ugás suffered an orbital fracture in the technical knockout loss to Errol Spence Jr.

April 21, 2022

Yordenis Ugás paid dearly for his courage. Doctors have announced that Ugás, 35 years old, suffered a right orbital fracture during his fight Saturday night against Errol Spence.

Spence achieved a victory by technical knockout in the tenth round after the doctor ruled in his second trip to the ring that the Cuban could not continue. The Santiago boxer himself confirmed the injury on his social media.

"Hello everyone. First of all I wanted to apologize for not coming to thank you in person after the fight to everyone who was supporting me, I have a fracture in my eye and in the coming days the doctors will say how they will treat it.

Last night I spent the whole early morning in a hospital and I'm writing these words with only one eye, I still have the other one closed. But it's very important to me to write them for you. I want to give thanks and to be grateful to my family, my team and to every person who was supporting me. I want to give my congratulations to Spence, a great champion… and sharing the ring with him was an honor, he came as always sharp, and in the last rounds he landed the shot to my eye and everything became even more difficult… the better man won inside the ring.

We have gotten here by taking our victories and defeats with humility. I am sad, but at peace. I came back from the darkness. And at this point I have already fought Crawford the amateur, Porter, Pacquiao, Spence, some of the best fighters in history and future Hall of Famers.

"I am proud of what I am doing, inside and outside of the ring. I have won millions of hearts. And we will continue trying to be an example for young fighters. And especially continue motivating my community. For many I will continue to be a champion with or without a belt. With God's grace great days are still to come… we will recover and return stronger. Never give up. Patria y Vida. Thank you all," wrote Ugás.

Ugás fought before more than 40,000 fans for the unification of the welterweight title against Spence who fought at home in Texas. Ugás (27-5, 22 KOs) was diagnosed with the eye injury early Sunday morning at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Cuban was connected with a left uppercut in the seventh round that caused his eye to swell immediately. Despite the injury that prevented normal vision, Ugás fought for three more rounds before the referee stopped the fight on the doctor's advice. According to his team, Ugás does not require emergency surgery, and will be re-examined at a later date after the swelling decreases to determine what medical procedure he requires.

A lengthy rest could be imminent. The Santiago de Cuba idol surprised Spence in the sixth and made him stumble but could not finish what could have been a spectacular victory against the favored American who clearly outboxed him.

Despite the defeat, the Beijing 2008 Olympic bronze medalist who was at that time AMB champion, attracted hundreds of Cubans to the AT&T Stadium in Dallas, and tens of thousands followed the fight within the United States and in other parts of the world including Cuba where most of them managed to follow the bout over the Internet.