By Dan Ambrose: WBA welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman (25-0, 21 KOs) made weight on Friday for his title defense against Luis Collazo (36-6, 19 KOs) this Saturday night on Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN from the USF Sun Dome in Tampa, Florida. A suntanned Thurman weighed in at 146.2 pounds and looked in good shape. The 5’7 ½” Thurman appeared to be a little shorter than the 5’9” Collazo, and not quite as big as him in terms of his frame.

That’s not good for Thurman if he ever has to move up to junior middleweight because there are a lot of guys in that weight class who melt down from the 170s to fight at that weight, and they definitely have bigger frames than Thurman. Collazo weighed in at 147 pounds right at the welterweight upper limit.

During the stare down, Thurman tried briefly to intimidate the more experienced Collazo, who merely smiled back at him while chewing gum. Once Thurman realized that it wasn’t going to work with the stare down tactics, he broke it up and turned around and looked at the audience.

In reading those two guys, we should see a competitive fight on Saturday night. Thurman is the definite favorite, but Collazo has plenty of punching power that could cause an upset if Thurman tries to fight as aggressively against him as he did in his last fight against the light hitting Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero last March. What’s interesting about that fight is Thurman still appears to have two black eyes from that fight. The black were a result of a head-clash that caused a big lump on the side of Thurman’s forehead.

The blood from the lump settled around both of Thurman’s eyes, resulting in dark circles. After four months the darkness is still there around Thurman’s eyes. He’s going to need more time for the darkness to go away. But with Thurman facing Collazo, he could be dealing with more black eyes if he elects to brawl with him rather than fight with his hit and run style that he normally uses when fighting someone that hits back with respectable power.

For Thurman’s sake, he needs to look good in this fight and not fight like he did against Leonard Bundu in which he ran around the ring in trying not to get hit by the 40-year-old fighter in their fight in December 2014.

Thurman wants to make a case for himself with this fight that he deserves to be considered for Floyd Mayweather Jr’s next fight in September, but he’s not going to be able to do that unless he destroys Collazo. The only Thurman can possibly accomplish that task is to take some chances by getting into the trenches and stay there with him. Thurman isn’t going to be able to score a knockout with his “One Time” style of fighting where he lands one shot and immediately retreats so that he doesn’t get hit in return.

Other weights on the card:

Tony Harrison 153.8 vs. Willie Nelson 154.6
Edner Cherry 132 vs. Luis Cruz 132.8
Anthony Peterson 138 vs. Ramesis Gil 137.4
Patryk Szymanski 155.6 vs. Maurice Louishomme 154.6
Antonio Tarver Jr. 155.2 vs. Julian Valerio 155
Walter Castillo 143.6 Ammeth Diaz 143.8
Manny Woods 154.8 vs. Carlos Garcia 153.8
Gary Russell 117.8 vs. Jaxel Marrero 119