By Jim Dower: Fresh off his less than thrilling 12 round unanimous decision win over 40-year-old Leonard Bundu last Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, interim WBA welterweight champion Keith Thurman (24-0, 21 KOs) now says he wants a fight against Marcos Maidana (35-5, 31 KOs) next in 2015.
Thurman was booed constantly for all the movement that he made against Bundu. It was not an entertaining fight because Thurman would immediately back away and start circling the ring at the slightest hint of aggression from Bundu.
Thurman didn’t want to get hit at all, and he never stayed in the pocket for any length of time.
Afterwards, Thurman was defensive about how he fought saying “This is the sport of boxing. I pick how I want to fight.”
The problem is Thurman’s constant running wasn’t entertaining and it was from crowd-pleasing given the booing. Thurman didn’t help himself by being so defensive about how he fought. Instead of acknowledging that he stunk up the place by running constantly, Thurman said he’ll fight the way he wants to and “Only some of them are booing, the rest of them are cheering.”
There were very few cheers from the fans for the Thurman-Bundu fight.
“You [the fans] can’t tell me what to do,” Thurman said after the fight to esnewsreporting.com. “Floyd Mayweather Jr isn’t the only one who can win a fight by a 12 round decision.”
There’s a big difference between Thurman and Mayweather. When Mayweather fights, he stays in the pocket much of the time and picks off his opponents with accurate pot shots. When Thurman fights, he doesn’t stay in the pocket. Thurman likes to land left hooks while backing away. He doesn’t come forward and stand his ground when his opponent is showing aggression. In other words, Thurman is too much of a runner for his own good, and his fights are nowhere nearly as entertaining as Mayweather’s.
“This fight [Maidana] will have more knockdowns than the Bundu fight,” Thurman said.
I’m not sure that Maidana is going to want to bother facing Thurman after watching him fight Bundu. Thurman uses too much movement, and it would be a case where Maidana would likely have to chase him around the ring all night long. I doubt that Maidana wants to face an opponent that doesn’t stand in the pocket at least part of the time, because there’s no gain for him. He would be literally chasing Thurman all night long.
If Thurman wants to get to the next level and become a pay-per-view attraction then he’s going to need to change the way he fights, because his current style is the opposite of PPV stars like Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Thurman’s fighting style is more like Erislandy Lara with the way he constantly tries to avoid getting hit.
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