By Dan Ambrose: It was learned today that the match-up between WBA welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman (26-0, 22 KOs) and former IBF welterweight champion “Showtime” Shawn Porter (26-1-1, 16 KOs) is set for June 25 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Porter vs. Thurman was supposed to have taken place last month on March 12, but Thurman postponed the fight after suffering an injury during an automobile accident last February. Thurman, 27, suffered a whip lash injury in the accident, and he complained of his shoulders and neck freezing up when he attempted to work out afterwards.
With the fight finally being scheduled for June 25, it has to be assumed that Thurman will be able to make it out of training camp and will be able to take the fight against Porter on June 25. If not, then it would be a second postponement for the fight.
At that point, the World Boxing Association would need to make up their minds whether to strip Thurman of his WBA title so that Porter isn’t left waiting in limbo for even longer amount of time. Porter will have been out of the ring for an entire year by the time he fights on June 25. During that same amount of time, Porter could have fought three times if he had an opponent that was ready to fight him.
“Was told today it’s all set: Thurman-Porter will be at Barclays Center on June 25. #boxing,” said Dan Rafael on his Twitter.
Porter, 28, hasn’t fought since winning an easy one-sided 12 round unanimous decision over former four division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner last June. Many of the months since then have seen Porter wait on negotiations for the Thurman fight to finish out. It was thought by some that Thurman has been dragging his feet over defending his title against Porter, because it would be Thurman’s first difficult fight of his career and he could very well lose. Thurman has talked about wanting to fight the best, but up until now, he’s not faced the best.
Thurman has been fighting guys like Julio Diaz, Luis Collazo, Jesus Soto Karass, Diego Chaves, Jan Zaveck, Carlos Quintana and Robert Guerrero. Those are good B-level welterweights, but not the A-class fighters. For some reason, Thurman’s management has been taking their time in putting him in with the A-class fighters, and now he’s finally scheduled to fight Porter on June 25. Hopefully the fight takes place on that date, and Thurman doesn’t pull out with an injury.
If Thurman can’t make it for the fight on June 25, then Porter needs to consider moving on and trying to get a fight against WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia if his manager Al Haymon will let him move in that direction. If this is the only fight available for Porter at 147, then he needs to consider moving up in weight to 154 to try and keep his career moving along rather than waiting for Thurman to finally make it inside the ring. At some point, the WBA is going to need to yank Thurman’s title if he can’t make it for this fight date.
Thurman last fought in July of last year in stopping fringe contender Luis Collazo in the 7th round. It was a good win, but a bad opponent.
As the WBA world champion, Thurman should have been fighting better opposition than Collazo for his title defense, especially given that Thurman’s previous fight was against the struggling Robert Guerrero. Errol Spence had been trying to get a fight against Thurman with no luck. That would have been a much better fight for Thurman than a fight against former world champion Collazo, who had been badly beaten by Amir Khan in one of his recent fights.
Thurman got sloppy seconds in facing Collazo after he was beaten by Khan. It made no sense for the World Boxing Association to sanction the Thurman vs. Collazo fight, given that Collazo had been recently beaten by Khan. When you see a fighter like Thurman taking on guys that were beaten recently in Collazo, it sends a red flag out that he might not be looking to take on the best opponents as the WBA champion. That’s why I’m surprised that Thurman is facing Porter because this is a truly 50-50 fight.