By Dan Ambrose: The welterweight contest between WBA champion Keith “One Time” Thurman (26-0, 22 KOs) and Shawn Porter (26-1-1, 16 KOs) has been given a new date of June 25 for Showtime Boxing. The co-feature bout has been upgraded with former three division world champion Abner Mares (29-2-1, 15 KOs) facing WBA World featherweight champion Cuellar (28-1, 21 KOs).
Hopefully the June 25 fight date will stick for this card, because it’ll depend on Thurman, who was injured in an automobile accident a couple of weeks ago and received a whiplash injury. Whether Thurman can fight on June 25 will depend his healing from the injury. That’s three months away.
Part of that time will involve Thurman training. He’s going to need to be healthy almost immediately for him to get ready for that fight. I wonder if he can do. For someone that was involved in a car accident, it might not be enough time for Thurman.
“June 25 on SHO sports is new date for Thurman-Porter with upgraded co-feature: Abner Mares challenging 126 titlist Jesus Cuellar,” said Dan Rafael on his Twitter.
Porter’s dad/trainer Kenny Porter recently said that they would give Thurman until late June to heal up and be ready to fight. If he can’t be ready to go by then, they would move on and look for another fight. They can’t afford to sit outside of the ring for a long period of time waiting for the injured Thurman to recover from his automobile accident.
Kenny mentioned wanting to try and get a title fight against WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia if Thurman isn’t ready to go. That would be a good fight, and I’d have to favor Porter in that match. However, I don’t think for a second that Garcia or his father Angel Garcia would ever agree to fight Porter. Even if he were the mandatory challenger, I think they’d get out of the fight somehow just like they got out of the Viktor Postol fight by first postponing it and then later moving up in weight.
If Thurman does get healthy enough to face Porter, it’s going to be a very tough fight for Thurman. Porter proved in the Adrien Broner fight last June that he can stay on top of a runner for 12 rounds without giving him any breathing room. Broner tried to clinch Porter all night long, but he found out that Porter wasn’t going to stop throwing punches no matter how often he tried to hold.
Thurman does not have an inside game, and he doesn’t like to stand in the pocket even though he has good punching power. I think Porter is going to keep Thurman from getting any space to escape the pressure. If Thurman can’t run or hold effectively, then I see him getting butchered and taken out.
I’m going to remain skeptical about Thurman coming back on June 25. I have a feeling this is going to be a situation where Thurman keeps moving the goalposts back with different fight dates being given until finally Porter has to move on. At that point, I think Thurman will come back and defend his WBA title against whoever is waiting for him.
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