By Jeff Aranow: Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman (28-0, 22 KOs) vacated his WBC welterweight title on Tuesday due to a hand injury that will keep out of action for at least 8 more weeks. The hand injury is just the latest injury the 28-year-old Thurman has had to deal.
In the last 2 years, Thurman has physically been breaking down with one injury after another that has limited him to fighting just once per year.
Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia have been ordered to fight for Thurman’s vacated WBC welterweight title. However, it remains to be seen whether Danny Garcia will agree to the Porter fight. Garcia might not like the idea of having to take a difficult opponent like Porter for him to fight for a world title, as he can always take the easy path and look to fight the winner of the Lucas Matthysse vs. Manny Pacquiao fight.
Before suffering his latest injury involving his hand, Thurman had planned on fighting on May 19th on Showtime. Thurman had been rehabbing his surgically repaired left elbow. The problem was expected to be resolved by May 19, but then he suffered a new injury.
Thurman hasn’t vacated his WBA 147 lb. title as of yet, but it’s quite possible that he’ll lose that strap as well if he stays of the ring for too much longer. If Thurman does come back in July, he’ll have been out of the ring for 16 months. That’s a long time for a champion not to have defended his title.
World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman said on Tuesday that Thurman will have a chance to fight for his vacated WBC 147 lb. title as soon as he’s healed. What’s interesting is that Thurman is going to be given a world title shot at the WBC belt straightaway as soon as he’s ready, and yet the WBC hasn’t given him an emeritus tag. Usually, that’s what the WBC does with injured champions. They give them a new emeritus spot, which allows them to leap frog the active fighters and get a title shot whenever they’re healthy and interested in fighting for a world title.
“Keith Thurman unfortunately has suffered two consecutive injuries that have kept him out of the ring after his sensational victory over Danny Garcia and he has graciously relinquished his title, and the WBC has mandated that Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter will fight for the title,” said Mauricio Sulaiman.
If Thurman hadn’t relinquished his WBC title, the sanctioning body would have stripped him sooner or later for his inactivity. The WBC has been extremely patient as it is in not stripping Garcia of his 147 lb. title after 1 year elapsed since he won the title in March of 2017. In the past, the WBC has been quick to demote their injured champions by giving them the emeritus tag when they’ve been hurt, but in Thurman’s case, they were patient with him.
“Keith will have a direct path to fight for the title once he has healed just as Vitali Klitshcko and other WBC champions have done in the past. Keith is a tremendous athlete, champion and role model. The WBC will support him completely during this difficult time,” Sulaiman said.
If Thurman does come back to win the WBC title from whomever emerges as the new champion, it could be the same exact situation as before with ‘One Time’ suffering debilitating injuries that limit his ability to defend his title. In the past, Thurman wouldn’t be out of the ring for 12 months, but he suffered an especially bad injury to his elbow that has been slow in healing.
Here are Thurman’s injuries in the last three years:
• Shoulder injury in 2014
• Neck injury – 2016
• Elbow injury – 2017
• Hand injury – 2018
Thurman has become one of the walking wounded with his string of injuries that he’s had to deal with in the last four years, and he’s not even 30-years-old. Injuries in the sport of boxing are a common occurrence, but the great frequency of Thurman’s problems suggests that many he’s not cut out to be a fighter. Sometimes athletes aren’t rugged enough to compete in their given sports. There are great athletes in all sports that have their careers cut short due to injury problems. Thurman might be one of those individuals