Thurman: Neck Isn't An Issue, Sparring Has Gone Well For Porter

By Keith Idec

The neck injury Keith Thurman sustained during a late-February car accident limited Thurman to about one month of sparring for his June 25 fight against Shawn Porter.

Thurman is confident that’s more than enough sparring to prepare him for their welterweight showdown at Barclays Center in Brooklyn (CBS). The unbeaten WBA welterweight champion considers the injury fully healed as well and doesn’t anticipate any neck issues over the next 10 days or during the fight.

“I don’t see myself worrying about it come the 25th,” Thurman said during a conference call. “The major difference is gonna be I’m gonna be getting hit with 8-ounce gloves, instead of 16-ounce gloves. But we believe that we’re well-prepared and we’ll be able to handle everything come this upcoming fight.”

Thurman (26-0, 22 KOs), of Clearwater, Fla., and Porter (26-1-1, 16 KOs), a former IBF welterweight champ from Akron, Ohio, were supposed to fight March 12 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. Their nationally broadcast bout was postponed 3½ months because Thurman needed six weeks off from training and underwent extensive physical therapy to rehabilitate his neck injury.

The 27-year-old Thurman admitted Tuesday that he was nervous before his first sparring session of this training camp last month. It went well, though, and he sparred repeatedly without any neck discomfort thereafter.

“[My neck] took it fine,” Thurman said, “which I expected because I was already doing some neck-strengthening exercises and I would’ve known. I would’ve had feedback from the resistance training I was doing if my neck wasn’t going to hold up in sparring. I still was thinking about it a little bit going into it that day, for that first day. But, you know, it held up. We went and got therapy that week, like we were supposed to.

“We just kept going and every week since then, it’s been fine. We feel great. We’re happy to be doing what we do best. Boxing, you know, you’re always a little nervous, a little nervous when you’re thinking, ‘OK, I’ve got this issue. Am I gonna be able to be the same?’ And we are, man. That’s all that we can ask for, and we’re truly blessed.”

Thurman’s training camp clearly was different than usual because he did less sparring, but he doesn’t expect that to impact his performance against Porter.

“It’s just been a little different, as far as we had to [cut] sparring back a little bit in this camp,” Thurman said. “We couldn’t spar early in this camp, just for the safety of my neck and not to jeopardize anything and just follow my doctor’s instructions. We had to build up and start off with, you know, just cardio and shadowboxing and then get into the mitt work and the pad work.

“This camp has just really been a progression, you know, nothing really out of the norm. Nothing really change-of-pace with too many things. We just had to formulate it a little different, so that we could get the job done and be prepared.”

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.