By Jim Dower: Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya believes that his fighter interim WBA welterweight champion Keith Thurman (24-0, 21 KOs) is a better fighter than WBA Super World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (31-0, 28 KOs).
De La Hoya believes this because Golovkin doesn’t choose to move around the ring constantly the way that Thurman does when he fights. De La Hoya says that Golovkin can’t fight going backwards the way that Thurman does.
The timing of this comment from De La Hoya comes right after Thurman’s stock dropped badly with his recent performance against 40-year-old Leonard Bundu. Instead of standing his ground to fight the light hitting Bundu, who had no power to speak of, Thurman ended up running from him for the entire fight and treating Bundu like he was another Julian Jackson.
Thurman ended up getting booed from the 4th round until the end of the fight in the 12th. Afterwards, Thurman continued to be booed loudly by the fans when he spoke to the Showtime commentator at ringiside.
When asked who is the better fighter – Golovkin or Thurman? De La Hoya said via esnewsreporting “Thurman, absolutely…a lot of fighters are strong. There are ways of beating strong fighters. One thing about Thurman, he knows how to move laterally, he uses combinations, he thinks in the ring.
Golovkin is a fighter who has to beat you with his power. He can’t beat you moving side to side or going back. One thing I’ve learned about Golovkin, because I’ve studied him, is he can’t move back. He can’t fight moving back.”
There are some boxing fans who feel that the reason why Thurman moves so much is because he has a shaky chin. We saw Thurman get hurt by Diego Chaves and Jesus Soto Karass when he briefly stopped and tried to trade with them. After he was hurt, Thurman got back on his bike and never really stopped for any length of time.
It could be that Thurman moves so much in order to protect a weak chin.
As far as De La Hoya saying that Thurman is better than Golovkin, I believe the measuring of who is the better fighter is done by boxing fans, not their promoters. Golovkin arguably is the much more popular fighter than Thurman which suggests he’s the better fighter in the eyes of the fans. Thurman has his fans, but his style of fighting is for fans that like that style over fighters that stand their ground and sit down on their punches.
It would be interesting to see if De La Hoya would be willing to put his beliefs to a test by letting Thurman face Golovkin in a fight at 154. Would De La Hoya green light that fight or would he stand in the way of the fight to protect Thurman? My guess is De La Hoya wouldn’t let Thurman take the fight with Golovkin, because even with Thurman running constantly, it would be only a matter of time before Golovkin caught him with a shot and knocked him out.
There may come a point in the future where De La Hoya is going to need to talk to Thurman about him staying in the pocket more and not running as much, because he’s not going to become a huge star if he keeps moving constantly like he did against Bundu.
Comments are closed.