BoxRec

The World Boxing Association's Championships Committee has ordered a mandatory fight between WBA "regular" welterweight champion Alexander Besputin of Russia and the number one ranked contender, Cuba's Yordenis Ugas.



Besputin (14-0, 9 KOs), who is promoted by Top Rank, captured the vacant belt this past Saturday night in Monaco, with a twelve round unanimous decision win over unbeaten countryman Radzhab Butaev.

The belt became vacant back in July, when Manny Pacquiao (who had the "regular" title) won a twelve round decision over Keith Thurman, who had the WBA's "super" title at welterweight. Pacquiao still holds the WBA's "super" title at the weight.

Ugas (24-4, 11KOs) lost what some felt was a razor close fight with WBC world champion Shawn Porter in March.

He came back in July and dominated former world champion Omar Figueroa over twelve rounds, on the Pacquiao-Thurman undercard at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Ugas has been waiting for a mandatory crack at a world title - and now has Besputin on his plate.

The fight could easily head to a purse bid, as Ugas is handled by Premier Boxing Champions, who have content deals with Fox Sports and Showtime. Butaev's promoter Top Rank has an exclusive content deal with ESPN.

Source

Perfect match. Yorgenis Ugas is exactly type of boxer, who will beat sh!!t out of you if you are not world class level. Looking forward to this

If the Ugas who fought Porter shows up, this should be a good test for Besputin. I'm leaning toward Ugas at this point.

Bessy is a good fighter but for the higher levels his defense really isn't good enough for him to fight with his hands at the waist like he does, Ugas would probably beat him but it's a really good fight

I think Ugas is too rugged for the undersized Besputin. The only caveat being that Besputin is potentially on a fast learning trajectory since he has only 13 fights and showed some creativity and adaptability in his last fight with Bustaev , This learning curve maybe be reflected if he synthesizes the lessons learned fighting Butaev. An example of this way of thinking is I don't think Besputin would have beaten Buteav if he had not had the experience of fighting Juan Carlos Abreu earlier in his career.

Definitely a good fight to find out if Besputin ready for elite of division.

Love this fight!
Besputin is nice to watch, great footwork. Ugas is dangerous.
I voted Besputin points. If he can survive the power of Ugas, I think he can slow him down with body shots, and box his way to a decision.
Not confident of that though!!

Haven't seen either of these guys in action yet myself. I'll have to check them out.