Thurman losing patience with Mayweather

By Boxing News - 07/03/2015 - Comments

thurman7By Dan Ambrose: After saying earlier this week that he’s willing to wait for as long as it takes for the big fights to come for his career, WBA World welterweight champion Keith Thurman (25-0, 21 KOs) is beginning to show some impatience with WBA/WBC/WBO welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs), who he’s hoping to fight on September 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The 26-year-old Thurman badly wants the fight with Mayweather, and likely the huge payday that would come with it. Thurman feels he’s done enough to deserve the fight with Mayweather, even though Thurman’s best win of his career was against Robert “The Ghost’ Guerrero and not against anyone that you can call a true talent.

Thurman wants the fight and he wants Mayweather tell him whether he’s going to get it or not.

“Do you want to fight? Be honest with me,” Thurman said to FighthubTV in asking Mayweather to tell him if he’s going to get the fight or not. “If you’re going to leave me alone, just let me know you’re going to leave me alone – I’m not worried about it. I’m 26 years old. I’m going to have my own career – I will have my own career.”

Thurman is using kind of a primitive approach to getting a fight against Mayweather, because he’s not likely going to go anywhere by begging Mayweather to acknowledge him and give him the word whether he’s getting the fight or not. You would think it would be apparent to Thurman that he’s not getting the fight with Mayweather given that the superstar has already named his top two leading candidates for his next fight in Andre Berto and Karim Mayfield.

If Mayweather isn’t adding Thurman’s name to the listen, then that’s a pretty clear hint that he has no interest in wanting to fight him next. As for Mayweather’s fight in 2016, if he does choose to fight on with his career after September, he’s probably not going to fight Thurman at that point either. Mayweather will obviously look for an established fighter like Manny Pacquiao for his last fight, not a green around the gills up and comer like Thurman.

“The whole world knows what I want, you know? I just want an opportunity to showcase my skills and my talent against the man who is claiming to be ‘TBE’ [The Best Ever],” Thurman said. “My career may consist of a Floyd Mayweather fight or it may not. You can see that I’m humble. I understand the sport of boxing.”

Thurman should really be more worried about trying to win his next fight against 2nd tier fighter Luis Collazo (36-6, 19 KOs) in their fight next week on July 11th on Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN from the USF Sundome, in Tampa, Florida, USA. That should be Thurman’s main concern right now, not begging Mayweather to acknowledge him and tell it in no uncertain terms whether or not he’s ever going to get a fight against him. It’s clear as day that Thurman isn’t ever going to get a fight against Mayweather. That’s not a knock on Thurman. It just means the guy is too young and from another era. He’s too far behind Mayweather right now to be considered as a possibility for him. Mayweather is like in college, whereas Thurman is still in grade school as far accomplishments and being known to the boxing public. Thurman doesn’t have a big name yet with the casual boxing fans. He’s known by the hardcore fans, but the casual fans don’t know who he is. Obviously, it would help his career in a huge way if Mayweather were to throw him a bone by giving him a fight, but why would he do that when the move would ultimately hurt Mayweather by him bringing in fewer PPV buys due to Thurman being an unknown with the casual fans.

Thurman needs to start fighting much better opposition because he’s never going to be a huge name if he keeps fighting guys like Collazo, Guerrero, Jesus Soto Karass and Leonard Bundu. T

Thurman has a chance to make a name for himself by agreeing to fight Errol Spence Jr. on Mayweather’s September 12th undercard. Mayweather has already offered Thurman the fight, which would bring Thurman a huge amount of visibility due to it being seen by millions of people both live and on replay on Showtime. If Thurman wants to increase his popularity and improve what little chance he has for a Mayweather fight, then he should take Mayweather up on his offer by facing Spence. It’s obviously a dangerous fight for Thurman, because Spence can really punch and Thurman has shown in the past to have a chin problem when getting nailed with hard shots. Thurman won’t be able to beat Spence by running around the ring all night long like he did against Bundu and like he did in the last eight rounds against Guerrero.



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