{"id":645679,"date":"2026-06-18T17:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T17:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/645679\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T17:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T17:21:08","slug":"former-world-champion-says-pulling-out-of-fight-against-manny-pacquiao-was-a-blessing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/645679\/","title":{"rendered":"Former world champion says pulling out of fight against Manny Pacquiao was a ‘blessing’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manny Pacquiao<\/a> has competed in 73 professional bouts to date, but there is one man who is thankful that his scheduled showdown with the Filipino icon did not take place, labelling his withdrawal as a \u2018blessing in disguise\u2019.<\/p>\n

A true pound-for-pound legend of the sport, many fighters dream of sharing the ring with one of boxing\u2019s most accomplished combatants; the only boxer to have held a world title in four different decades and the only eight-division world champion.<\/p>\n

Pacquiao is now chasing another feat, hoping to break his own as the oldest welterweight champion of all time, having last held the WBA welterweight title at the age of 42 years old before losing it to Yordenis Ugas<\/a>, who stepped in as a challenger when Errol Spence Jr pulled out.<\/p>\n

Speaking on The Art of Ward Podcast<\/a>, Spence admitted that he is glad the fight with \u2018Pac-Man\u2019 did not go ahead, fearing that the eye injury, which caused his withdrawal, could have seriously impacted both his career and life.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll through camp I was feeling bad, I was feeling super bad, I was messed up. I\u2019ll say this again, I don\u2019t know if it is life, God or whatever it was; I got hit in my eye during sparring and I really was still sparring during that time and all of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to Vegas and I had to do the eye test, it was cloudy, I was seeing clouds, it was messed up and I went to go to the eye doctor and I think he saw it, but he wanted me to tell him, so he was like, \u2018do you see any clouds?\u2019, and I was like \u2018nah, I don\u2019t see nothing\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018you sure?\u2019 And I said \u2018nah, I don\u2019t see nothing, it looks clear, I am good\u2019. I was trying to get the approval, but he was like \u2018man, your eye is messed up\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to tell the doctor to let me fight and that I will be good, that I will sign whatever you want me to sign, I told him that I will make sure that he [Pacquiao] don\u2019t hit me in my eye!<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was like, \u2018nah, man, if you get hit in your eye the right way, you could be blind in your eye. I can\u2019t let you fight\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that was a blessing in disguise because, if I would have took that fight and something would have happened, I would be wearing a patch over my eye right now and I wouldn\u2019t have had the fights that I have had and made the money that I have made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spence returns to action against Tim Tszyu next month<\/a>, ending a three-year stretch of inactivity with an intriguing test up at super-welterweight.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manny Pacquiao has competed in 73 professional bouts to date, but there is one man who is thankful…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-645679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}