During this video interview with our friend Marcos Villegas of Fight Hub TV, former welterweight champion Keith Thurman gives his analysis of the big upcoming welterweight fight between Terence Crawford and Shawn Porter. Being that Thurman has experience in facing Porter as an opponent, Thurman tries to put the fight in perspective. Check out what he had to say below…
“Shawn’s thing is, you know, his rhythm can really be a challenge,” Thurman said. “He can duck really low, and it’s just angles that in the moment you have to make the proper adjustment to. And when you can’t fully make the proper adjustment to it, doesn’t mean that you can’t handle it, just means that you can’t fight back — you get put on your back foot a little bit, you’re gonna be a little defensive and maybe can’t counter properly.
“Now saying that out loud, we know that Terence can counter properly, we know Terence got a lot of skills in his skill set. So at the end of the day I want to say on paper he should be able to dish out what Shawn’s gonna be putting on him. We saw Errol take it, we saw me take it, we saw Kell Brook (take it). So I want to say Terence Crawford is the type of fighter who has a skill set that can take the variables that Shawn Porter brings into the ring.
“Now after saying that, Shawn works hard. When he’s throwing his combinations he’s not going to land everything but with those small gloves and flurries of punches, something is gonna get in, something’s gonna get around, something’s gonna get through. If Shawn can go into a flurry and start pin-placing one to two shots in those flurries and becoming a little bit more of a sharpshooter as he goes after you, I think he can do damage. I’ve seen him do damage in the amateurs, I’ve seen him do damage multiple times throughout his career. I just think the way he’s chosen to fight — because we know small, short, stocky, you start really mixing it up big like Mike Tyson, going for that knockout, what do you have in the later rounds?
“And this is not the heavyweight division, these are welterweights. They will be moving fast and moving around you, circling, in the later rounds. So I think that’s made Shawn want to compete at the 12-round level but I would just like to seem him buckle down on some of that organic power that he’s had and just become champion of the world again. Because if anybody really, really, really wants it, it’s Shawn.
“I don’t favor him statistically but I do think it’s a very challenging fight because we haven’t seen Terence against real welterweights. The Kell Brook fight, it is what it is, he dominated it — we get that. But when you’re a critic you’re a critic so sometimes that means you might be a dang asshole. If I’m going to critique (Crawford) I’m going to say there wasn’t enough to fully impress me to give you a legitimate saying that you’re the baddest man in the welterweight in the welterweight division, I want to see more. And we’re gonna see a lot more with Shawn Porter.
“Shawn Porter, he represents like an army. If your army’s better than Shawn Porter’s army, then so be it, you deserve to be on the throne. But if your army is not better than Shawn Porter’s army then he deserves to take your castle and your throne, and that’s what he does. He goes around wrecking people but he just can’t get the real kings out there. He’s fallen short of messing with the real guys.
“At the end of the day everybody believes Terence Crawford is that real guy, it doesn’t get realer than testing him against Shawn Porter. I mean, not too many people lose and come back fighting the same way…Shawn Porter loses and comes back as Shawn Porter…I mean to me he’s one of the most consistent — at his level he’s just very consistent. So if you want to be above him you’ve truly got to prove you’re above a Shawn Porter level.”