Derrick James: Errol Spence never complained about eye injury, confident he’ll return strong

As we continue to sort through the fallout of Errol Spence pulling out of his upcoming fight against Manny Pacquiao, Spence’s trainer Derrick James tells RingTV that he’s confident Spence will be able to make a return following surgery to repair a torn retina. With the scheduled fight just over a week away Yordenis Ugas will step in as a late replacement to face Pacquiao.

“Errol is okay, and I’m not a medical professional so I don’t know when exactly he’ll be able to come back, but he will be back. Fighters have detached retinas often and come back all of the time. We don’t know how it happened and we don’t know when it happened.”

James would continue by saying he himself wasn’t aware that Spence needed to pull out of the fight until Monday afternoon. Of course at this time there’s no specific timetable set for when Spence will return to action, but James assures the public that Spence will be back and he supports him having a fight before the year is out if that how Spence wants to handle it. Generally speaking, however, the recovery time following surgery for a retina tear is up to one month.