By Jake Donovan

It remains a game time decision as to which fighting style Keith Thurman plans to employ versus Manny Pacquiao.

Whatever he decides, the unbeaten weilterweight titlist remains confident it will be enough to not only win the fight but retire the legendary Filipino southpaw.

“I’m going to do to him what I did to Danny Garcia,” Thurman (29-0, 22KOs) told BoxingScene.com of the general approach he plans to take once the bell sounds for their Fox Sports Pay-Per-View headliner this Saturday at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nev. “Freddie Roach is the only one talking shit right now. It reminds me of the Danny Garcia fight (with father/trainer Angel Garcia).

“Manny Pacquiao knows, it’s these hands that do the talking. “Bop! I’m going to hit him as soon as I can see him. Bop! It don’t matter to me.”

Thurman opened up as a slight betting favorite, but updated odds now place him as a narrow underdog heading into his first PPV headliner. The 30-year old from Florida showed considerable ring rust in his most recent performance, a 12-round win over Josesito Lopez this past January in Brooklyn, New York.

The bout—which remains the most watched boxing telecast of 2019 to date—was his first in 22 months, having been out since his March 2017 title unification win over Garcia. It also came one week following the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) debut of Pacquiao (61-7-2, 39KOs), boxing’s only-ever eight division titlist who scored a landslide 12-round win over Adrien Broner in their Showtime PPV main event, which also took place at MGM Grand. 

Perhaps the two fights running back-to-back have bettors convinced that the 40-year old Pacquiao enters fresher than his unbeaten opponent 10 years his junior. All of that sits perfectly well with the defending titlist, who believes he has already figured out the renowned superstar.

“Watching tape, just knowing Pacquiao, he’s a guy who will run up the numbers if you let him,” observes Thurman, who has held a full version of the welterweight title since 2015. “You fight him with movement. I know how boxing works. If I feel like he’s getting off too much, maybe I wlll think about offering more movement.

“Manny is awkward in the ring. Maybe I’ll do different things - or, I can just hit him on the chin. We’ll find out.”

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox