During a conversation with our friend Marcos Villegas of Fight Hub TV, Mario Barrios takes some time to chat about Saturday night’s main event against Keith Thurman and his final thoughts on the bout including a hint at what tactics he’ll be looking to employ in this outing. Check out some excerpts of what Barrios had to say below.
Barrios on if he’s expecting vintage Keith Thurman form after coming off such a long layoff
“I hope so, ‘cause a victory over any Keith Thurman less than 100% is not good enough for me.”
On what he can take from Thurman’s fight against Pacquiao to give him an edge
“In that fight it showed that Keith struggles with combination punchers. That’s how Pacquiao was landing his punches. It wasn’t the first two that was landing, it was the last two or three punches of the combinations. And it just shows you he is a great fighter but Thurman does have vulnerabilities and I’m looking to exploit those on Saturday.”
On if he believes Thurman isn’t as effective when he’s moving backwards
“Yeah, I mean we did our studies throughout camp, we picked up the habits that we needed to and I’m going into this fight confident knowing that we did everything right with out game plan and I’m gonna try to execute it as best as I can, really.”
On his expectations for the performance he’ll put on tomorrow night
“Overall I’m just expecting I’m just expecting a hard fuckin’ 12 rounds, really. We know he has a chin, we know he can take a punch but we also know, or he’s shown in a lot of his fights, he’s able to gas out, he starts to become more vulnerable as the rounds go on. And like I said, I’m just looking to exploit all the things we picked up on and just utilize our game plan as best as I can.”