Keith Thurman says comeback opponent might not be a top 10 contender

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow: Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman (28-0, 22 KOs) says his comeback opponent might not be a top 10 ranked contender for his fight on Showtime Boxing on May 19 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Thurman was rumored to be fighting Jessie Vargas next, but that’s not happening. Thurman says it’s going to be someone potentially outside of the top 10 for his comeback fight. Thurman is still calling the entire 2018 as his “get back year.”

Thurman says for his second fight of the 2 fights he’s planning for 2018, it could be a top 5 to 7 contender. If that’s the case, then it rules out Thurman fighting rematches against #1 WBC Shawn Porter or #2 WBC Danny Garcia. Both of those guys are hoping they can get a fight against Thurman this year, but doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

If Thurman is interested in only fighting a #5 to #7 contender, it would mean he’s looking for his SECOND fight of 2018 to come against one of these fighters: Kudratillo Abdukakhorov, Cesar Miguel Barrionuevo, Carlos Adames or Kerman Lejarraga. Fighting those obscure guys could hurt Thurman’s popularity in a major way in the boxing world, especially after he faces a soft touch for his comeback fight on May 19th against a fighter outside of the top 10. There’s nothing but obscure fighters outside of the top 10 at welterweight.

“I got put on the bench, but what I did that year was so perfect that it doesn’t affect me as much as people think,” Thurman said to Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports News. “The reason is by beating Danny Garcia, I separated myself from the rest of my competition. I’m currently the only unified champion in the welterweight division. Even though I haven’t fought in the past 11 months, I still have my titles. I still have my ranking. So it’s like a stock that doesn’t go up, and a stock that doesn’t go down. After I beat Danny Garcia, I raised my stock and it’s just waiting to see what we’re going to do next,” Thurman said.

I would disagree with Thurman in terms of him raising his stock from his win over Danny Garcia. That was not an impressive performance by the 28-year-old Thurman. He fought well for the first 6 rounds, but then he seemed to either tire or get scared after Garcia hit him hard with left hook in the 6th round. From that point on, Thurman was running from Garcia and looking scared. Thurman’s stock definitely dropped from his close win over Garcia. Moreover, Thurman’s inactivity for the last 11 months has further hurt his standing in the boxing world. Thurman is starting to be viewed as a brittle fighter due to him suffering injuries in the last 2 years of his career that has limited him to fighting just 1 time per year. In any sport, an athlete’s stock does not stay the same when they’re injured and sitting on the bench most of the time. In the NFL when a player is injured most of the time for a 2-year stretch the way Thurman has, the teams start looking at moving that player to get younger, healthier players. Thurman fighting 1 time per year means he’s mostly spending time injured and not competing. That looks to me like Thurman isn’t rugged enough to survive at the top of the sport of boxing without him breaking down with injuries. The WBA and WBC is being VERY patient with Thurman by not stripping him of his 2 world titles. Thurman will have been out of the ring for 14 months by the time he fights on May 19th, and that’s if he doesn’t suffer another injury while training. If Thurman gets injured again, his comeback will need to be postponed for a number of months. At some point the sanctioning bodies have to put their foot down and think about the many contenders that are having their careers stalled by Thurman being injured for prolonged periods of time.

”I brought you Keith Thurman vs. Shawn Porter,” Thurman said. ”I brought you Keith Thurman vs. Danny Garcia. The big fight happens when I step into the ring when I make these big fights happen. What I’m trying to let people know right now that demand more of me is this is a comeback year. This is a get back year. The elbow surgery set me back further than I wanted to be,” Thurman continued.

If the WBA and WBC are going to allow Thurman to use 2018 for nothing but voluntary defenses, then he can certainly fight fringe contenders for the entire year. I don’t think it’s a good career move for Thurman to use up the entire year for him to face weak challenger, but it looks like his focus is on getting easy paydays and to make sure he holds onto his 2 welterweight titles for as long as possible. One way for Thurman to accomplish that goal is for him to fight fringe contenders, and there are certainly a lot of those types of opponents. Thurman has already shown that he can beat Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia, and the WBC has them ranked #1 and #2. Thurman can probably still beat both of them as long as his inactivity hasn’t hurt his conditioning. They won’t be easy fights for Thurman, but he definitely has the talent to defeat both of them. But it doesn’t appear that Thurman plans on fighting Porter and Garcia this year. They can’t be too pleased at hearing Thurman say that he wants to fight someone from #5 to #7 for his second fight of the year after he faces a guy outside of the top 10 for his comeback fight on May 19th.

”It’s a great fight,” Thurman said about Errol Spence. “I look forward to the competition. But another thing I tell people is I just unified 2 titles. Errol Spence just got his first world title. There’s nothing wrong with me defending my unification, and him defending the title he has in building up to a bigger fight, because I do see that as a the big fight. Everybody is talking about it this year, and it’s not even going to happen this year. We really want to bounce back in tremendous fashion. We want to make sure we bounce back completely,” Thurman said.

Thurman just sounds like he’s in it for the money at this point. It’s kind of sad because he’s acting like he’s already became a star and he can afford to allow fights against the likes of Errol Spence Jr. to marinate. The fact of the matter is Thurman ISN’T a star. He could become a star if he were to beat the best fighters in the welterweight division in Spence, Terence Crawford and Jeff Horn. Thurman already beat Porter and Danny Garcia, so there’s no point in mentioning their names any longer. The rematches involving those fighters are just money fights for Thurman. For some reason, Thurman doesn’t seem willing to take on the best so he can make himself a legitimate star. Thurman is satisfied with his wins over Porter and Garcia as being enough for him to say he’s the best fighter in the 147 lb. weight class. Those are guys are known by the hardcore boxing fans but not the casual fans. Thurman needs to do a lot more than beating Porter and Garcia to make himself a star. Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya didn’t become stars after beating their first 2 named opponents. It took them both years to become big stars by beating a lot of good fighters.

Thurman’s last 5 fights have been against these guys:

• Danny Garcia

• Shawn Porter

• Luis Collazo

• Robert Guerrero

• Leonard Bundu

Thurman doesn’t have the resume yet for him to afford to sit on his titles and milk them against bottom feeders in a “get back year.” That’s a mistake on Thurman’s part. He’s not going to increase his popularity by fighting weak opposition with the WBA and WBC’s blessing for all of 2018.

”I might not even fight anybody in the top 10 in my comeback fight,” Thurman said. ”We’ll have to see what we negotiate. Outside of that, in the next fight, should it really be the No.2 guy? I can go after somebody from the top 7 up, top 5, but should it be the #2 guy? We can actually make it marinate. I like using Errol’s nickname, ‘The Truth,’ because the truth is he ain’t going nowhere. I already established my position, and I’m not going nowhere. So, if he’s the truth, he’s not going nowhere. So there should be nothing you’re worried about. He should be worried about nothing. I should be worried about nothing. Handle business; put some money in the bank,” Thurman said.

Thurman is going to be picking low hanging fruit for his next fight in fighting someone outside of the top 10 in the WBA or WBC’s rankings. If Thurman does fight someone outside of the top 10 for his May 19th fight, then he’ll be facing one of these guys:

• Egidijus Kavaliauskas

• Jamal James

• Ahmed El Miusaoui

• Kerman Lejarraga

• Charles Manyuchi

• Roberto Arriaza

• Zhankozh Tuarov

• Konstantin Ponomarev

• Samuel Vargas

• Valentyn Golovko

Those are the contenders ranked from 11 to 15 in the WBA and WBC’s ranking. You’ve got to feel sorry for Showtime Boxing if Thurman picks one of those guys for his next fight on May 19th, and he selects someone from #5 to 7 for his second fight in 2018. Showtime would have very little value for Thurman fighting in the main event on their cards. Those are all potentially terrible fights for Showtime. Even the 5 to 7 ranked contender are all mediocre fighters that would have no chance against Thurman.

Since Thurman is blaming his elbow injury as the excuse for him having use the entire 2018 as his “get back year,” what guarantee does Showtime have that he doesn’t suffer another injury of some kind this year that requires him to call next year his “get back” year too? Once you get a fighter like Thurman that uses injuries as an excuse for him to take it easy for an entire year in main event fights on Showtime, it just continues into the future. It’s like having an employee tell his employer that they’re having a “get back year” at work because they had bad a cold, so they need entire year of putting out only a partial effort instead of working at full capacity. Companies can’t afford employees that use injuries or illnesses as an excuse for them to half step it for an entire year.

The WBA, WBC and Showtime need to step in and set some limits with Thurman’s dragging out his injury problems and using it as a rationale for him being able to face weak competition for the entire year. It’s nice that Thurman beat Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter in the past, but those fights are done. Thurman can’t live off the glory of those accomplishments and use them as excuses for him to coast for an entire year. Garcia never beat anyone good at 147 to show that he’s a great fighter. He almost lost to Lamont Peterson, and he struggled against Robert Guerrero. Garcia won his WBC title the easy way by beating an over the hill Guerrero. Thurman didn’t prove anything beating Garcia. Shawn Porter had always been beaten by Kell Brook before Thurman beat him. Porter did a better job of beating Porter.

”I’ll give you guys a good fight this year,” Thurman said. ”It will most likely NOT be the Spence fight, but after that into the next year after I perform twice this year, because another thing, It’s been several years since I performed 2 times in one year. So this year I just want to prove to myself that I can step back into the ring twice this year and be more active, and after that me and my team will be open to negotiate any fight,” Thurman said.

Thurman doesn’t even guarantee that he’ll fight Spence in 2019, and you can understand why. If the sanctioning bodies and Showtime are allowing Thurman to milk his titles on network television for good paydays, then why should he risk his hide fighting Spence? Fight Spence could end he gravy train for Thurman? Once he loses to Spence, Thurman’s money is going to drop off the cliff, as his stock will drop and he’ll just be a contender again.