By Chris Williams: Undefeated welterweight contender Keith Thurman (19-0, 18 KO’s) says he sees Manny Pacquiao as a flawed fighter, and he wasn’t surprised when Juan Manuel Marquez knocked him out last year in December in the 6th round. Thurman wishes that Floyd Mayweather Jr. had defeated Pacquiao before a couple of years ago in order to stop all the Pacquiao mania that came about.
Thurman said to Maxboxing.com “He’s [Pacquiao] made a real nice career for himself but he is a very beatable fighter…I wished Floyd Mayweather would have beat him two years ago so they wouldn’t have created this hype. And like Marquez told everybody, he’s a little bit smarter.”
Mayweather tried to put together a fight with Pacquiao three years ago in 2010, but he was unable to get Pacquiao to agree to the random blood testing that he wanted for the fight. Had that fight taken place, we’d have likely see Pacquiao lose convincingly.
Would Pacquiao be seen as the same fighter if Mayweather had gotten to him three years ago and beaten him soundly? I think not. It wouldn’t have mattered that Arum matched Pacquiao against past their prime fighters Antonio Margarito and Shane Mosley, and his Top Rank stable fighters Tim Bradley, Juan Manuel and Joshua Clottey. I think the Pacquiao hype would have been much less after a defeat at the hands of Mayweather.
Those guys wouldn’t be good enough to make boxing fans forget how badly he was beaten by Mayweather.
It sounds like Thurman wouldn’t mind having a go at Pacquiao himself. I’d like to see how that would turn out, but that’s probably never going to happen unless Thurman joins up with Top Rank so that the fight is an in house fight.
Even under those circumstances, I can’t see Arum letting the hard hitting Thurman fight Pacquiao because if Thurman landed one of his big right hands on the button, we could see Pacquiao knocked clean out again. Arum likely wouldn’t want Pacquiao’s career being put in jeopardy by putting him in with a guy like Thurman.
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