Manny Pacquiao 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 ‘blessing in disguise’.
A true pound-for-pound legend of the sport, many fighters dream of sharing the ring with one of boxing’s most accomplished combatants; the only boxer to have held a world title in four different decades and the only eight-division world champion.
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, who stepped in as a challenger when Errol Spence Jr pulled out.
Speaking on The Art of Ward Podcast, Spence admitted that he is glad the fight with ‘Pac-Man’ did not go ahead, fearing that the eye injury, which caused his withdrawal, could have seriously impacted both his career and life.
“All through camp I was feeling bad, I was feeling super bad, I was messed up. I’ll say this again, I don’t 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.
“I 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, ‘do you see any clouds?’, and I was like ‘nah, I don’t see nothing’.
“He said, ‘you sure?’ And I said ‘nah, I don’t see nothing, it looks clear, I am good’. I was trying to get the approval, but he was like ‘man, your eye is messed up’.”
“I 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’t hit me in my eye!
“He was like, ‘nah, man, if you get hit in your eye the right way, you could be blind in your eye. I can’t let you fight’.
“I 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’t have had the fights that I have had and made the money that I have made.”
Spence returns to action against Tim Tszyu next month, ending a three-year stretch of inactivity with an intriguing test up at super-welterweight.
