Keith Thurman: I'll Be Ready For Guerrero's Rough Tactics

By Edward Chaykovsky

WBA 'regular' welterweight champion Keith "One time" Thurman (24-0, 21KOs) is preparing for a rough, inside war with former multi-division champion Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero (32-2-1, 18KOs). On March 7th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Thurman and Guerrero will collide in an NBC televised fight as part of Al Haymon's new 'Premier Boxing Champions' series.

Thurman has been studying Guerrero's fights and not just his biggest wins at 147, like the twelve round war with Andre Berto from a few years ago. Thurman expects a lot of activity and punches being thrown.

"We've watched more than just the Andre Berto fight now, and he's an active fighter.  He's an active fighter.  He will fight you on the inside.  He'll try to hit you with his power punches from the outside.  He's truly a fighter.  He wants to fight and if you're holding him or he's holding you, that doesn't mean that he's going to stop fighting.  He will keep fighting every second of the fight.  He's well-conditioned from what I've seen.  He's saying that he's going to be prepared.  I believe the man.  We're at the world class level.  Every fighter at this stage should be prepared," Thurman said.

Guerrero loves to brawl on the inside. Thurman is not accustomed to fighters getting in close to trade punches and use rough tactics, but he'll be prepared if Guerrero plans to utilize his usual bag of tricks.

"I'm going to do a little wrestling in my training camp here.  We're going to get ready.  I don't want it to be a shock to me.  He's not going to be able to surprise me by roughhousing me on the inside.  We're going to do the best that we can.  We're obviously going to bring southpaws sparring into the camp, but I'm not going to be able to bring Guerrero into the camp.  You know what I mean?  So there should be a few minor changes that I'm going to have to make fighting night but we're going to do the best that we can to be prepared for the fight," Thurman said.