By Allan Fox: WBA World welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman (25-0, 21 KOs) has hit a dry streak in his career where he’s no longer knocking guys out like he was before when he was fighting lower level, record-padding opposition.
Thurman, 26, said earlier today that he’s now facing crafty opposition who are focusing on not getting knocked out, and that’s why he’s not getting the KOs like he had before. He says his power is still the same, but he’s now facing guys that trying to survive.
Thurman will get a chance to prove that he’s still the same knockout fighter next month when he defends his WBA title against 34-year-old former WBA welterweight champ Luis Collazo (36-6, 19 KOs) on July 11th on Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) on ESPN from the USF Sundome, in Tampa, Florida, USA.
“At the end of the day I still hold one of the highest KO ratios in the welterweight division,” Thurman said during today’s press conference. “At this level, no fighter is coming to get knocked out. They know what they’re up against. They know they’re in with a dangerous fighter. They’re trying to box. They’re trying to be crafty. It’s apparent that I am a puncher with power from the beginning to the end. We want the knockout for the fans, for the publicity to live up to the name ‘One Time,’ but at the end of the day, we still just want to be a champion and we’ll do whatever it takes to be a champion,” Thurman said.
Thurman is going to have to be careful about opening up too much against Collazo because he could run into something big like Victor Ortiz did in his 2nd round knockout in January of 2014. Ortiz got careless when he was trying to slug with Collazo, and he wound up getting dropped. Collazo then finished him off. Thurman’s chin is no better than Ortiz’s, and that’s why he has to move so much in his fights. He can’t stay in the pocket because he’s get shaken up when he stays in close for too long of a time.
Collazo, a 15-year veteran, has been stopped before once in his career when he was taken out in two rounds 13 years ago in 2002 by little known Edwin Cassiani. That was early on in Collazo’s career, and he’s not been knocked out since. Collazo has been in with guys like Ricky Hatton, Amir Khan, Shane Mosley, Andre Berto and Victor Ortiz. None of them have come close to stopping him.
If Thurman wants to restart his “One Time” label, he’s going to really need to go after Collazo because he’s not going to get a knockout by moving in and out like he did recently against Robert “The Ghost’ Guerrero in his last fight in March. Thurman won the fight by a 12 round decision, but he was unable to stay in the pocket for long because he was taking too much punishment from Guerrero.
Collazo is coming off of a 2nd round knockout win over Christopher Degollado in his last fight in April. Before that, Collazo was beaten soundly by Amir Khan by a 12 round decision in May of last year. Khan focused on just boxing Collazo rather than slugging with him, and the only he slugged with him was when he felt confident there was nothing coming back.
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