Thurman Wants To Keep Fighting on Free TV, Not on Pay-Per-View

By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Keith Thurman doesn’t want his impressive performance Saturday night to be his last appearance on free TV.

A rematch against Shawn Porter and a welterweight championship unification fight against Danny Garcia conceivably could be pay-per-view fights for Thurman. The unbeaten WBA 147-pound champion would prefer, however, to continue fighting on network television because it’ll expose him to the largest possible audience.

“I don’t want pay-per-view,” Thurman said following his action-packed victory over Porter on Saturday night at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. “I don’t want you to pay for this entertainment. There’s too much world-class athletic entertainment for free. I want all of America to see."

“I didn’t have HBO growing up. I didn’t have Showtime growing up. And if you have HBO and you have Showtime, and they make it pay-per-view, now you’ve got to come out of your pocket some more. I’m not trying to gouge the American people and the American public. I want to get everybody on my side. I want everybody to have an opportunity to witness ‘One Time.’ And I want boxing to come back to the forefront of network television.”

Promoter Lou DiBella, whose company was the official promoter of the Premier Boxing Champions card Saturday night, echoed Thurman’s sentiments.

“Who wants to have to pay 70 bucks, when you can get something for free?,” DiBella asked. “You’ve got to be a moron. You know what I mean? Now, could [a Thurman-Porter rematch] be pay-per-view? Yeah, people would pay for it. It could be.

“But you know what? If I’m Showtime and CBS, I’m finding a way to get it on the network. And by the way, everything’s bigger on regular TV. More people see it. You know? I’ve got to be honest. I haven’t spent $70 in a long time and felt like I got my money’s worth. That’s just the truth.”

Initial Nielsen Media Research numbers indicated that the Thurman-Porter main event averaged about 2.4 million viewers, which would make it the most-watched boxing match on American television this year.

The audience grew presumably because word spread about the legitimate “Fight of the Year” candidate Thurman and Porter were producing. The 27-year-old Thurman (27-0, 22 KOs), of Clearwater, Florida, and the 28-year-old Porter (26-2-1, 16 KOs), of Akron, Ohio, both were appeared hurt multiple times during a highly entertaining, 12-round slugfest Thurman won by unanimous decision (115-113 on all three scorecards).

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.