By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten welterweight contender Keith Thurman (19-0, 18 KO’s) and former IBF welterweight champion Jan Zaveck (32-2, 18 KO’s) are close to having a fight set for March 9th, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. The Thurman-Zaveck fight will be a WBO welterweight title eliminator, and it will be taking place on the undercard of the Bernard Hopkins vs. Tavoris Cloud fight card next month on March 9th at the Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, New York.
The winner of the Thurman-Zaveck fight will be the mandatory challenger for World Boxing Organization 147 lb. champion Tim Bradley.
Zaveck will be turning 37 next month, and he’s not been active since losing his International Boxing Federation 147 pound title to Andre Berto in September 2011 by a 5th round stoppage. Zaveck, 5’7 1/2”, fought only once in 2012, beating Bethuel Ushona by a 12 round unanimous decision last March. I saw the fight and had Ushona winning by six rounds. He out-landed and out-worked Zaveck by a huge margin, and it’s unclear what the judges were seeing to give Zaveck the victory in that fight.
Thurman is much too big for Zaveck, and this fight will be pretty one-sided from start to finish. It’ll be entertaining because Zaveck comes to fight, but he doesn’t have the power or the size to compete with Thurman. I suspect this could be over before the 6th round.
Once Thurman gets past Zaveck, It’ll be interesting to see the 5’11” Thurman facing the tiny 5’6” Tim Bradley, if Bradley doesn’t vacate to avoid that fight. As good as Bradley is as a fighter, I think Thurman’s size alone will give Bradley nightmares.
Besides the size differences between the two fighters, there’s also the huge gap in power between them. Bradley can’t punch, and he would literally have to run for 12 rounds in a fight with Thurman. That fight would shape up to be a mismatch if Bradley doesn’t decide to vacate first.
If Bradley doesn’t vacate his title, we still could see Thurman have to wait a considerable amount of time before he finally gets a shot against Bradley because I could see this being dragged out for well over a year or even longer if the World Boxing Organization doesn’t force Bradley to face Thurman.
Bradley’s promoter Bob Arum would likely realize right off the bat what a bad match-up this would be for Bradley, and I doubt Arum will let Bradley get anywhere near Thurman because there are just too many chances for Bradley to take a beating and get knocked out.
Comments are closed.