Manny Pacquiao said an unusual pre-fight routine left him cramping in both legs before his 2021 loss to Yordenis Ugas, and that he could barely move once the fight began.
Pacquiao revisited the defeat in comments to Inside the Ring, saying the team used a massage machine before the bout and that the first round of problems came as soon as he entered the ring. “For the Ugas fight, we did a routine that we did not usually do before a fight. That’s what happened to me, cramping in both legs,” he said. “Before the fight, we did the massage machine. In the fight, I was cramping and could not move. It was the first time in my career that happened,” Pacquiao said.
The loss came in 2021, when Pacquiao was 42 years and eight months old and Ugas was 35. That age gap was only part of the story. Ugas, naturally bigger at welterweight, used a disciplined long jab that Pacquiao struggled to get past all night, while clean right hands found a target through long stretches of the bout.
Pacquiao still had moments of hand speed and effort, but he could not sustain the kind of exchanges that once made him one of boxing’s most difficult opponents to handle. The cramps gave the defeat a stark explanation from Pacquiao’s side, but the fight also showed how a patient, technically sound welterweight could slow him down when the pace and distance worked against him.
What Pacquiao described was not just a bad night but a setback shaped by preparation, age and an opponent who controlled range better than he did. The question his account leaves behind is not whether he felt the cramping, but how much of the loss belonged to that unusual routine and how much belonged to Ugas himself.