By Dan Ambrose: The July 11th match-up between WBA World welterweight champion Keith Thurman (25-0, 21 KOs) and former WBA 147lb champion Luis Collazo (36-6, 19 KOs) finally has a venue for the fight. It’ll be taking place at the USF Sun Dome in Tampa, Florida.
The 26-year-old Thurman comes from the nearby Clearwater, Florida. This should help sell tickets for the fight because Thurman is popular in Florida. He could use a big crowd for one of his fights. The Thurman-Collazo fight will be televised on ESPN starting at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on July 11th on Premier Boxing Champions.
Thurman is coming off one of his better wins of his career in his last fight in beating Robert Guerrero by a 12 round unanimous decision last March. Compared to his performance against Leonard Bundu, which wasn’t a good one, Thurman was a lot more aggressive in beating Guerrero. However, it’s unknown if this was just an aberration or if this is what we’re going to be seeing more of in the future with Thurman. But even in the Guerrero fight, you could see that Thurman does not like to stay in the pocket for very long despite him having the power advantage.
While Thurman is a big puncher, as we saw against Guerrero, Diego Chaves and Jesus Soto Karass, Thurman does not have great defense, and he doesn’t like getting hit. Both Chaves and Soto-Karass had Thurman hurt. Leonard Bundu had Thurman running and looking scared last December in a fight that Thurman won by an impressive 12 round decision.
Even in the Guerrero fight, Thurman was only able to stay in the pocket for the first fur rounds before putting on his track shoes and running for the final 8 rounds of the fight. This comes after Thurman had said he was going to fight Guerrero in a toe-to-toe battle for the first six rounds. It looks like the big shots that Thurman took from the southpaw Guerrero in the first four rounds of the fight caused him to change his mind about the subject.
Thurman has taken a lot of heat from boxing fans for choosing to defend his WBA title against Collazo, a fighter who was recently beaten by Amir Khan last year by a 12 round unanimous decision. Khan gave Collazo a real pounding in a one-sided fight. It wasn’t even entertaining because Khan totally dominated the fight. What makes Thurman look even worse is the fact that Collazo isn’t ranked in the top 15 by any of the boxing sanctioning bodies.
Also on the card is 154lb prospect Tony Harrison battling Willie Nelson in a 10 round bout. This will be the co-feature bout on the card.
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