By Dan Ambrose: Undefeated Errol Spence Jr. (20-0, 17 KOs) was asked about WBA welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman at Spence’s press conference last Saturday night following his 5th round knockout win over Chris Algieri (21-3, 8 KOs) at the Barclays Center Brooklyn, New York.
It was pointed out by a member of the media that Thurman had dismissed any notion of a fight against Spence last year due to Thurman’s belief that Spence didn’t have the experience to be fighting him. Spence finally got a chance to fire back at Thurman last Saturday when he pointed out that the only name on Thurman’s entire resume is Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero, who clearly is on the downside of his career with three defeats in his last five fights.
You can argue that Guerrero has lost four out of his last five fights because his 10 round decision over Aaron Martinez last June was highly controversial. Many boxing fans had Martinez winning that fight. It was surprising that the referee working that fight didn’t stop it after Guerrero was knocked down in the 4th round because he appeared to lose consciousness after getting hit with some hard shots from Martinez while trapped against the ropes.
“It was a big mistake. I mean, the only notable win Keith Thurman really has is Robert Guerrero…and he’s been pro for like 8 years; I’ve been pro for 3 1/2 years,” said Spence.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. tried to entice Thurman to fight Spence last year by calling Thurman out and saying he would give up one of his two welterweight titles for the two unbeaten welterweights to fight over. Thurman turned down the offer, and instead he felt that Mayweather should fight him. Thurman didn’t like the idea that he would need to fight a guy with less experience them himself, even though Thurman’s experience was barely better than that of Spence.
Some boxing fans felt that Thurman ducked the Spence fight out of fear of getting beaten by him. What made Thurman look really bad is that he turned down the fight against Spence and then turned around and fought the shopworn Luis Collazo last July. Collazo is clearly a fighter well below that of Spence in turns of talent, which is why it seemed to strange that Thurman would take a fight against him instead of Spence. Collazo had been soundly beaten by Amir Khan in May of 2014 in losing a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 119-104, 117-106 and 119-104.
Thurman will be defending his WBA title on June 25 against former IBF welterweight champion “Showtime” Shawn Porter (26-1-1, 16 KOs) at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. If Thurman loses that fight, then he’ll need to get back into the contender ranks and figure out what he can do to try and get a world title shot to win another title. Spence’s promoter Lou Dibella says Spence will be in the audience on the night of the Thurman-Porter fight and will be looking up at the guys as a potential opponent for the winner.
