Ellerbe: Thurman can’t beat Spence; Mayweather’s not thinking about him

By Boxing News - 07/07/2015 - Comments

thurman2By Dan Ambrose: WBA World welterweight champion Keith Thurman (25-0, 21 KOs) got the door to a Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight shut in his face hard today by Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe, who said that the 26-year-old Thurman isn’t in the cards for Mayweather for his September 12th fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Ellerbe points out that Thurman was asked by Mayweather to fight the talented #8 WBA 147lb contender on his undercard in September, but Thurman said no to that fight. Ellerbe said he doesn’t see Thurman as a good enough fighter to beat Spence, so he’s dismissing him as a viable candidate for the Mayweather fight.

Thurman had his chance to prove himself worthy of a Mayweather fight by facing the unbeaten Errol Spence (17-0, 14 KOs), but since he refused to fight him, it’s impossible to evaluate how good or not so good Thurman is.

Thurman needs to make the move, as tough as it is, to accept the fight with Spence. If Thurman can take that fight, beat Spence while looking good, then maybe he might be someone Mayweather will be interested in fighting next year. But right now Thurman isn’t on Team Mayweather’s radar. Thurman definitely isn’t helping himself fighting guys like Luis Collazo, Robert Guerrero, Julio Diaz, Jesus Soto Karass and Diego Chaves instead of fighters like Errol Spence.

“Last I checked Errol Spence called Keith Thurman out. In my opinion Keith Thurman can’t beat Errol Spence,” Ellerbe said to ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael. “I wish him the best. But he’s not on Floyd’s level. He doesn’t understand how the game goes. Ain’t nobody (on Team Mayweather) thinking about Keith Thurman.”

Thurman said to ESPN that he still saw himself in the “Mayweather conversation” for his September 12th fight. We now know that Thurman is not in the Mayweather conversation. If Thurman ever wants to fight stars like Mayweather, then he’s going to need to accept the offer of fighting Spence so that Mayweather can see for himself whether he’s someone he would like to fight. Fighting Collazo isn’t going to get Thurman a Mayweather fight.

It’s unclear why the World Boxing Association even sanctioned the Thurman-Collazo fight because Collazo isn’t ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies and he was recently beaten badly by Amir Khan. Thurman said something about Collazo’s name being the only one that was mentioned to him for his next fight. If that was the case, then Thurman should have stayed out of the ring, or better yet he should have taken Mayweather up on his offer to fight Spence on his undercard in September.

As of now, Thurman will likely fight before the end of the year against a still to be determined opponent. It would be good for Thurman if he were to step it up for his next fight against at least a contender.

One of the arguments that Thurman made for not fighting Spence was he wasn’t ranked high enough. If that’s the case, then why is Thurman fighting Collazo? He’s not ranked in the top 15 right now, and it makes no sense for Thurman to be fighting him. It just makes him look bad in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans because it looks like he’s focusing on easy marks.



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