Keith Thurman: record, next fight and profile →
There was a look of satisfaction etched onto the face of Angel Garcia. Having watched his son, Danny Garcia (37-3, 21 KOs), struggle both in and outside of the ring as of late, he cheered proudly as Danny returned to the win column.
Keith Thurman’s moniker, “One Time,” was once a descriptive phrase for the deleterious knockout power he possessed in both fists. However, after spending more and more of his time sequestered on the sidelines, “One Time” has now been used to describe his yearly ring appearances.
Keith Thurman wants to make it abundantly clear that he is not a stepping stone for up-and-coming fighters. The 33-year-old veteran welterweight and former champion recently doubled down on remarks he made to BoxingScene.com earlier this summer regarding his status in the sport.
Former welterweight champion Keith Thurman believes he’s the backup plan if negotiations around a super fight between Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford fall apart.
It took a while, but Keith Thurman is finally warming up to the idea of fighting rising welterweight star and second-generation attraction Conor Benn.
Hearn, the head of Matchroom Boxing, has been campaigning for the past year to have England’s Benn, the hard-hitting rising 147-pounder, face off against some of the top names at welterweight. Long at the top of Hearn’s list has been Keith Thurman, the native of Clearwater, Florida, and former 147-pound champion. Other names Hearn expressed interest in were Maurice Hooker and Adrien Broner.
Conor Benn does not begrudge Keith Thurman for not necessarily jumping at the chance to swap punches in the ring together. The rising welterweight contender from Essex, England, conceded that the risk-reward calculus as it pertains to himself does not make sense for a proven, former champion like Thurman. The native of Clearwater, Florida, has long been mentioned by Benn and his promoter Eddie Hearn as a top opponent but Thurman himself has rarely ever mentioned the Brit.
There’s a nice ring to being a two-division world champion. Former titlist and career-long welterweight Keith Thurman has flirted with the idea of moving up to 154 possibly to face someone like Erislandy Lara, the southpaw Cuban who currently holds a secondary WBA middleweight belt and has mentioned Thurman as a possible opponent.
Keith Thurman holds a lot of respect for Danny Garcia, even if his frequent trashtalking does not necessarily reflect that. The Clearwater, Florida, native recently offered a pithy retort to Garcia after Garcia expressed interest in a rematch of their encounter in 2017 that saw Thurman pick up a split decision win. Garcia made his feelings clear last Saturday night upon making a successful debut at the 154-pound mark against Jose Benavidez Jr. at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Do not count Keith Thurman among those who were overly impressed with Danny Garcia’s ring return. At least not to the point of reversing their shared in-ring history. Philadelphia’s Garcia ended a near 20-month layoff with a twelve-round decision win over Jose Benavidez Jr. in a terrific performance Saturday evening atop a Showtime tripleheader from Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The same venue played host to Thurman’s split decision win over Garcia (37-3, 21KOs) in their March 2017 WBA/WBA unification bout between unbeaten welterweight titlists.