Keith Thurman Wants To Become First To KO Guerrero

By Keith Idec

Keith Thurman is eager to become the first fighter to knock out Robert Guerrero when they meet March 7 in Las Vegas.

The unbeaten Thurman, of Clearwater, Fla., has knocked out 21 of his 24 professional foes. His knockout ratio (88 percent) ranks right up there with those of WBC heavyweight champ Deontay Wilder (97 percent), WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (90 percent) and IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champ Sergey Kovalev (85 percent).

Guerrero (32-2-1, 18 KOs, 2 NC), of Gliroy, Calif., has not lost by knockout or technical knockout during a pro career that began in April 2001.

“Robert’s never been stopped,” Thurman said on a conference call to promote their 12-round fight for Thurman’s WBA welterweight title at MGM Grand. “And when I hear a fighter’s never been stopped, I hear that as a challenge, especially being a puncher and knowing that he’s coming up from a lighter division [lightweight nearly three years ago]. You know, there’s fighters … Floyd Mayweather came up from a lighter division, Manny Pacquiao came up from a lighter division. Some of the best fighters in the world make their way up into the welterweight division and they hold their own. They go toe-to-toe with guys like me, who were originally 147 pounds – always was, always will be.”

Thurman’s last win marked just the third time one of his professional fights didn’t result in a knockout or technical knockout. He floored Leonard Bundu (31-1-2, 11 KOs) in the first round, but the previously unbeaten former Olympian from Sierra Leone managed to finish the completely one-sided, 12-round fight on his feet Dec. 13 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

“Last fight we got a knockdown,” Thurman said, “so that satisfied a little bit of the puncher in me, by producing a knockdown in the first round of the last fight. I just wasn’t able to put the icing on the cake by cutting the bout short.”

Beating Guerrero obviously is more important than anything, yet Thurman reiterated his desire to score a knockout in the first main event of Al Haymon’s new Premier Boxing Champions series on NBC.

“We’re going to be training extremely hard for his fight,” Thurman said. “We’re truly looking forward to this challenge that ‘The Ghost’ is going to bring. And we are looking forward to a fight that goes less than 12 rounds. But we will be prepared, no matter what the outcome.”

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.