Keith Thurman Fans... please help.

[HarvardBlue]

It's hard to take Thurman seriously when it seems like just yesterday he was saying Spence was inexperienced. Now he's saying he needs a "get back" year to be ready for the inexperienced young fella.

[Rayzah]

why wait? fighters need to start unifying and make all the traffic go through them...why hold the belt hostage? F^ck waiting....if you want to rebuild this year give the belt up and when u come back u can fight whoever has it when you get back...

[Carmen81]

He knows, if he loses, all his money is out the window because he could no longer be marketed as undefeated, so he will only fight when he feels he could win

[KayDub]

why wait? fighters need to start unifying and make all the traffic go through them...why hold the belt hostage? F^ck waiting....if you want to rebuild this year give the belt up and when u come back u can fight whoever has it when you get back...

Why would he give up his WBA and WBC belt to not face the IBF champion and instead face either the WBA or WBC mandatory challenger?

That doesn't even make sense. If he's facing the mandatory he wouldn't drop the belt, he'd get to keep it.

[Motorcity Cobra]

Honestly I think it's the money. He's not gonna take $2 mil to get his ass whooped by Spence. Keith tries to play that I'm not a businessman role but every boxer turns into a businessman once they reach a certain point. Hell, even Spence is a businessman. He said he'd go up to fight Canelo. Of course he would, who's gonna turn down that money?

[Rayzah]

Why would he give up his WBA and WBC belt to not face the IBF champion and instead face either the WBA or WBC mandatory challenger?

That doesn't even make sense. If he's facing the mandatory he wouldn't drop the belt, he'd get to keep it.

i just like the idea of one champion like in most major sports... only 1 king of the hill... I like to watch the best vs the best and once u get to the mountaintop no need to fight valley dwellers... your job is to defend the mountaintop from the up and coming challengers.....Thurman spoke a big game and now he is going against a lot of what he said...All these BS belts allow this madness to take place

[future hendrixx]

canelo was scared of ggg
floyd was scared of pacquiao
ward was scared of kovalev
loma was scared of rigo

its like mofos dont learn nothing from the past. these fighters not scared of sht but just because a fight doesnt happen on your schedule doesnt mean anybody is scared.

thurman faced porter and garcia back to back. that sht is impressive regardless what a hater says. those were two grueling fights. out of those two I say only porter is rematch worthy I think he clearly beat danny. not by a landlside but clear.

we dont know what goes on behind close doors in fighter meetings maybe all this sht is theatrics designed to sell the fight to a wider market. all this scared/duck talk is building the fight.

[suffolkbull3]

Not a Thurman fan, but happy to explain the business realities of the situation.

Porter is his mandatory, not Garcia. Garcia might be the mandatory next year, but that would put Garcia in position to fight the Thurman/Spence winner. The Garcia rematch wouldn't be before Spence.

As for Porter before Spence, it doesn't make sense for Thurman or Spence to fight each other before the public has more time to familiarize themselves with Spence and the fight has more time to be built up.

PBC plans to have Thurman and Spence unify in March 2019 on CBS if both are still undefeated. To avoid the winner immediately being stripped, they're trying to clear up some of the mandatories first while also giving the fight more time to build.

We are hardcore fans. We want Thurman vs. Spence now, but it takes more time for the average fan to become aware of fighters and potential fights. One of the most effective ways to market a fight is to cause the hardcore fans to ***** and moan. That *****ing and moaning raises awareness among casuals that it's a fight they should want to watch.

If you delivered every fight the second hardcore fans wanted it, you'd never have any big fights because hardcore fans are always going to want fights before they have a chance to become big.

see!! im totally cool with this.. thx for posting.. lets just hope they stay undefeated until march 19

[N/A]

Are you speaking with any degree of insider knowledge here?... The tone of your post is fairly authoritative.. as, in fact I've noticed is often the case with your posts - I'm curious whether you have any professional connection to the sport, maybe to a promotion or governing body or is this simply affectation and informed speculation?

In terms of the tentative plan for Thurman vs. Spence, yes I am speaking with a degree of behind the scenes knowledge.

Yes I have a professional connection to the sport. I've worked in the fight game most of my life. This account is actually operated by three previous boxingscene posters. One of us has ties to the WBC, one to the WBA and one to the IBF, hence our screen name. In all of our posts we used to write "we" instead of "I," but for some reason that seemed to bother a lot of people here, so I've gotten in the habit of just speaking in the first person now even though there are three of us that use this account.

I don't currently work for a sanctioning body or promoter, although I've worked for several promoters over the years, some of which work for Haymon these days. I used to work for Showtime, which is why I try to offer some insight into how they operate.

[Citizen Koba]

In terms of the tentative plan for Thurman vs. Spence, yes I am speaking with a degree of behind the scenes knowledge.

Yes I have a professional connection to the sport. I've worked in the fight game most of my life. This account is actually operated by three previous boxingscene posters. One of us has ties to the WBC, one to the WBA and one to the IBF, hence our screen name. In all of our posts we used to write "we" instead of "I," but for some reason that seemed to bother a lot of people here, so I've gotten in the habit of just speaking in the first person now even though there are three of us that use this account.

I don't currently work for a sanctioning body or promoter, although I've worked for several promoters over the years, some of which work for Haymon these days. I used to work for Showtime, which is why I try to offer some insight into how they operate.

Thanks, man. Actually I think I may have picked up on some of that info in your previous posts - I seem to remember it being mentioned that you were in fact a troika - but it's always good to have informed opinion on board, even if I'll not pretend I always agree with your sentiment or conclusions. But, ummm... damn, man, what's the etiquette for addressing one member of a triumvirate? And how do we know which one of you we're talking to...