By Dan Ambrose: The self-hyping unbeaten Keith Thurman (18-0, 17 KO’s) will be taking a big step up in class on Saturday night against #4 WBO, #6 IBF, #15 WBC junior middleweight contender Carlos Quintana (29-3, 23 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout on the undercard of the Robert Guerrero vs. Andre Berto fight card on HBO at the Citizens Business Bank Arena, in Ontario, California, USA.

This is going to be a really interesting fight to see how the 23-year-old Thurman does against the southpaw Quintana because this is such a huge step up in class for Thurman. Quintana can do a lot things and he’s arguably a lot more skilled than Thurman. However, we’ve seen fights where Quintana has struggled against big punchers in losses to Andre Berto and Miguel Cotto. We’ve also seen Quintana taken out in one round by Paul Williams, who never was a huge puncher.

Quintana defeated Deandre Latimore by a 6th round TKO last May in an impressive win. Quintana dominated Latimore and never really let him get into the fight.

Thurman has excellent power, but he’s faced limited opposition during his five year career. His best opponent is Orlando Lora, who Thurman took out in a 6th round TKO last July in a fight where he fought timidly despite having the better power. If Thurman fights like that against Quintana he’ll get beaten because Quintana is hard to hit and he’s a pure boxer.

If you fight defensively against Quintana he’ll box your head off. It’s pretty clear that the only way that Thurman wins this fight is by knocking Quintana out, because he’s not going to win a lot of rounds against him. Quintana is far too advanced a fighter for Thurman to be able to win a lot of rounds against him unless he’s knocking him down.

If Quintana fights like he did against Latimore then he’s going to be really hard to beat and will could end up stopping Thurman. I suspect that Thurman will come out fast and look to get a stoppage before Quintana has gotten a chance to get warmed up.