Manny Pacquiao will be climbing the ring against Errol Spence as challenger and not as the newly-reinstalled World Boxing Association (WBA) champion on 21 August at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Pacquiao was hoping that his super showdown with Spence would be a four-belt title war since the American also holds the World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation 147-lb belts and The Ring magazine has agreed that it is also staking its strap.
But WBA president Gilberto Mendoza yesterday said the governing body has ruled that a unification match won’t be taking place.
“It will not happen to classify him, it cannot happen. Unfortunately, he is not going to be unifying as we would like,” said Mendoza, who stripped Pacquiao off the title for inactivity.
Pacquiao’s team said it could not return to the ring because of the pandemic but the WBA obviously wasn’t convinced and put Cuban Yordenis Ugas in place of Pacquiao as holder of Super Champion status.
“You lose your belt in the ring and not in the board room,” said a disgusted MP Promotions chief Sean Gibbons from Los Angeles yesterday.
In other fronts, efforts are being undertaken to ensure that Pacquiao doesn’t catch Covid-19 while building up for the Spence battle.
“We are working on that,” Gibbons assured.
Gibbons was particularly concerned with the growing number of people trooping to Pacquiao’s morning workouts, especially at Griffith Park.
Though it is not enclosed, the sheer number watching Pacquiao’s running, stretching and shadowboxing could potentially cause a contagion.
Pacquiao, 42, hasn’t received even a single dose of the vaccine.
Over at the Wild Card Boxing Club, a makeshift testing center has been put up to screen people from getting inside the gym during Pacquiao’s schedule with Freddie Roach.
The United States has returned to normalcy with almost 70 percent of its population of 328 million already immunized but the emergence of the highly-contagious Delta variant could pose risks in the coming months.
Meanwhile, Roach has tapped two guys whose physique and southpaw stance resemble that of the 5-foot-10 Spence.
The 5-foot-11 Maurice Lee and 5-foot-10 Alex Rocha have started sparring with the Filipino eight-division champion.
