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I’m a big fan of Keith Thurman. (photo by Ryan Hafey)
Always have been, in fact.
Not only is he a Floridian – which gets him extra points now that it’s been my home turf, too, for 15 years – but he’s long one of the best and most consistently interesting interviews in the business.
I remember sitting at the Mayweather-Pacquiao weigh-in seven years ago, chatting up fans alongside me as he walked by us at the MGM Grand and telling anyone who’d listen that he’d be the next big thing once the old guard finally cleared out at 147 pounds.
He was 25-0 at the time, had stopped all but four of those foes and was two months removed from a 12-round beatdown of Robert Guerrero – a failed challenger to Mayweather in 2013 – that yielded a second-rate WBA title belt but did establish “One Time” as a significant welterweight player.
He handled former title claimant Luis Collazo in a difficult test in Tampa in his next fight after Guerrero, then headed north to Brooklyn for a Fight of the Year candidate against Shawn Porter – from which he emerged with 115-113 verdicts on all three scorecards and consensus acclaim as the WBA’s top man.
All seemed possible for him at age 26 and he was peaking with insight, too.
I recall our pre-Porter chat, during which he gave a compelling glimpse into his pre-fight routine.
“I see the devastating punches that I want to land to the head, the devastating punches that I want to land to the body and just start visualizing the alleyway,” he said. “If his hands are up like this, we’re going to go around from this angle. I’m going to duck come up with an uppercut, dig right to the solar plexus, and we just visualize it. We visualize squeezing the gloves. It’s like an Olympian sprinter who knows the time that he wants to get before he gets it and he just see himself doing it.
“I start to visualize myself getting into dangerous situations, where I’m in the corner and there’s an onslaught of punches. I have to rotate, keep my hands up, block and try to imagine what the impact of (his) power is going to feel like and just mentally prepare to endure a brawl or a rough fight if need be. There is a little bit of ups and downs, there’s a little bit of anxiousness.
“I can’t wait to get this over with, let’s go. I always tell myself that it’s gonna feel good as soon as I start hitting him. As soon as my punches start landing, I’m gonna feel a whole lot better. Until then it’s just anticipating. I have to wait. I do interviews. I have to talk about it. We have to express ourselves, how we feel about the fight without there being a fight.”
Hard to believe it’s been nearly six years.
He’s only fought four times since, losing the only one that truly mattered – to a 40-year-old Manny Pacquiao in what wound up as the Filipino’s final win – and subsequently seeing his status decline as the likes of Errol Spence Jr., Terence Crawford and Yordenis Ugas became championship commodities.
He’d vanished from The Ring’s divisional rankings at 147 as of late January, but a one-sided 12-rounder against former 140-pound claimant Mario Barrios on Saturday night in Las Vegas – his first fight since the Pacquiao loss 31 months ago – provided at least some evidence that reinvention remains possible.
“This was a comeback fight after two and a half years away,” he said. “I wish I had my best performance, but I did the best I could under the circumstances. I grade this performance a C+ or B- for myself.”
Thurman threw 173 more punches, landed 76 more and saved his most active round for last, throwing 70 shots across the final three minutes alone.
Afterward, the idea Spence, Crawford and Ugas have a new threat didn’t seem quite so crazy.
“We rocked him. We weren’t able to put him down and out, but we had a great performance and a great fight,” Thurman said. “I want the belts. I want the champions. I want to be back on top, so whoever is willing to send Keith Thurman the contract, let’s go.”
Spence and Ugas are promotionally aligned with the PBC apparatus, as is Thurman.
A post-fight tweet from IBF/WBC champ Spence suggested his belief that Thurman is a tailor-made foe.
Ugas, who’s penciled in to fight Spence in April, beat Pacquiao late last year to capture the WBA belt that the first-ballot Hall of Famer took from Thurman in their 2019 fight.
Crawford, meanwhile, is both the WBO champ and a promotional free agent after the recent completion of a contract with Top Rank.
“Those belts, I want back in my possession,” said Thurman, who won the WBC strap from Danny Garcia in 2017 but surrendered it without losing it in the ring.
“I do like the fight with Terence Crawford, but we’ll just have to see what opens up, what really negotiates, how stubborn we get when it comes to what kind of split there is.
“You know, it’s just business from here on out. I do like the fight, though.
“I do wanna fight champions. I’m gonna be looking forward to getting in the ring with a champion. I want an opportunity to get a world title again. So, if (Crawford is) the best opportunity, I’ll take it.”
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This week’s title-fight schedule:
No title fights scheduled.
Last week’s picks: 1-0 (WIN: Cuarto)
2022 picks record: 2-2 (50 percent)
Overall picks record: 1,211-394 (75.4 percent)
NOTE: Fights previewed are only those involving a sanctioning body’s full-fledged title-holder – no interim, diamond, silver, etc. Fights for WBA “world championships” are only included if no “super champion” exists in the weight class.
Lyle Fitzsimmons has covered professional boxing since 1995 and written a weekly column for Boxing Scene since 2008. He is a full voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Reach him at fitzbitz@msn.com or follow him on Twitter – @fitzbitz.