By Allan Fox: Undefeated welterweight/junior middleweight prospect Keith Thurman (18-0, 17 KO’s) stayed unbeaten with a 6th round TKO win over 31-year-old Orlando Lora (29-3-2, 19 KO’s) on Saturday night on the undercard of the Adrien Broner vs. Vincente Escobdo card at the U.S Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Thurman, 23, caught Lora with a check left hook that badly hurt him and then followed it with a right hand to the head that put Lora down on his backside on the canvas.
After Lora got up, he walked over to his corner and basically quit on his feet.
After the fight, Thurman called out the top welterweights in the division as well as Floyd Mayweather, saying “I’m ready for a belt. Paulie Malignaggi, I want your belt. Tim Bradley, I want your belt. Floyd Mayweather Jr., your unbeaten. I think I can defeat you. We want everyone in the welterweight division. They call you world champions. Come get some of Keith Thurman.”
I honestly wasn’t all that impressed with Thurman. He’s got heavy hands, but he doesn’t hit as hard as a lot of the welterweights in the division. I think the following welterweights have better power than him: Victor Ortiz, Andre Berto, Manny Pacquiao, Randall Bailey, Thomas Dulorme, Marcos Maidana, Selcuk Aydin and Ed Paredes. But what really jumps out at you when you see Thurman fight is how slow his hands are.
Thurman is really, really slow and he makes Maidana look fast. He doesn’t punch fast and doesn’t have quick feet either. That’s going to be a MAJOR problem for Thurman when he finally faces someone good. And Thurman’s defense is also really poor. He’s easy to hit, and he tends to back up into the ropes a lot, perhaps because he likes to throw left hook counters. Thurman has that check left hook like Mayweather, but that’s pretty much all he has. He’s got a decent right uppercut and overhand right but it’s nothing special compared to some of the bigger punchers in the division, and his lack of hand speed is going to be a major issue for him when he gets moved up against actual contenders.
Thurman’s management matched him easy with the light hitting Lora, but if this had been someone with power, Thurman would have likely been in deep, deep trouble. I’m surprised that HBO put this guy on because he looks so crude and slow. They were really pumping Thurman up like he’s going to be someone. I don’t see it happening. I think even Malingaggi would carve him up with his jab.
HBO needs to be better at appraising talent because if they’re going to force feed guys like Thurman and Amir Khan on the U.S boxing public fight after fight, they’re going to end up with egg on their face when they get beaten over and over again when they face guys that can actually fight. Beating Thurman will pretty easy because of his lack of hand speed, defense and his overuse of his left hook. If you take Thurman’s left hook away, he’s got nothing.
Comments are closed.