Pacquiao says he’s going to teach Thurman

By Boxing News - 07/02/2019 - Comments

Image: Pacquiao says he's going to teach Thurman

By Sean Jones: Manny Pacquiao says he’s going to “teach” Keith Thurman a lesson this month when they get inside the ring on July 20th in Las Vegas, Nevada. Thurman has talked a lot about how he wants to “destroy” and “annihilate” Pacquiao (61-7-2, 39 KOs) in order to make a statement to the other top welterweights in the division. Thurman states that he wants to use Manny as a “stepping stone” to bigger and better things.

Pacquiao-Thurman are fighting on Fox Sports pay-per-view on July 20 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Thurman has talked of Pacquiao being old at 40, and small with “T-Rex arms” that will prevent him from landing his shots.

Pacquiao sees Thurman as judging him on his preconceived notions of how 40-year-old fighters tend to fight. He believes Thurman is making a mistake of underestimating him, and he says he’s going to find out how wrong he is when the two of them get inside the ring. Thurman acts as if this is going to be an easy fight for him.

Pacquiao: I’m faster than Thurman

“I’m not worried about that,” said Pacquiao to Fighthub about Thurman saying he’s going to knock him out. “He’ll be surprised. He’s underestimating me because I’m a small guy. When we get into the ring, he’ll be surprised. Yeah, I think I’m faster than him. My hand speed, and foot speed. My foot speed is great than [his]. I’m going to teach him,” said Pacquiao.

Thurman (29-0, 22 KOs) says he still believes he’s the #1 welterweight in the division ahead of Errol Spence, who he rates as #2. He doesn’t say where he sees Manny, but it’s likely behind Terence Crawford, Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia. Thurman has a lot of respect for those welterweights.

With Pacquiao, Thurman respects him, but he sees him as a fighter that is no longer the same guy he once was. That makes sense, because Pacquiao isn’t in the prime of his career at this point. He hasn’t looked great since his win over Chris Algieri in 2014. That was a long time ago against a fighter that was never that great to begin with.

Thurman says he’ll nullify Pacquiao

“They don’t realize how well I strategize,” said Thurman to Fighthub. “Manny Pacquiao doesn’t realize how well I strategize. I’m going to prove once again why Keith Thurman is at the top of the welterweight division. I know ways of nullifying what he does. I can take it completely away. I cannot let him do what he wants to do. You prep all these weeks to do something, and then I do something completely different than the fight you expected,” said Thurman.

Keith says he’s going to focus on throwing 2-punch combinations, and then back away to keep Pacquiao from landing a shot in between his combos. Thurman says not going to get greedy and try to throw three punch combinations, because that’ll allow Manny to hit him. He says he’s going to quickly come forward and hit Pacquiao with another two punches, which will make it a 2 + 2 = 4 combination style of fighting. The four shots won’t come all at the same time, but Pacquiao is still going to get hit with them.

The other thing that Thurman says he wants to do is time Pacquiao when he’s coming forward to attack. Thurman wants to hit Pacquiao with a right hand on the button when he’s charging him. He thinks he can catch Manny the way Juan Manuel Marquez did in his sixth round knockout in 2012.

Thurman: I want to destroy Pacquiao

“It’s been a long time since the world saw Keith Thurman get a knockout,” said Thurman. “It would be great to not only beat Manny Pacquiao, but to destroy him. To Annihilate him. I would like to create a big statement, and get the job done early. Manny Pacquiao is a stepping stone.”

Thurman envisions the glory he’ll receive from boxing fans if/when he scores a knockout win over Pacquiao. It would be a statement, but it won’t be the huge thing that Thurman believes it’ll be. When Juan Manuel Marquez stopped Pacquiao in 2012, it was a big deal, because the two fighters were close to the same age and size. There’s a big size and age disparity between Pacquiao and the 30-year-old Thurman. There’s too much of a difference for Thurman to receive the credit that he dreams he’ll be getting.

Spence can become #1 without beating me says Thurman

“They believe they see the next thing at welterweight, but everyone knows you can’t be the next #1 welterweight without beating the #1 welterweight,” said Thurman about Errol Spence. I understand the hurt feelings.”

Thurman is under the belief that nothing has changed from his two years out of the ring. He feels that he’s till #1 at 147, because he didn’t lose to anyone yet. In other words, the two years out of the ring froze his position as the #1 welterweight. Unfortunately, the boxing public doesn’t see it that way. The fans see Spence as #1 at 147, and Terence Crawford at #2. Thurman thinks that a fighter can keep his status as the top fighter no matter how long they’re out of the ring. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. If that was the case, a fighter could come back after 10-20 years out of the ring and claim they’re still No.1, which would be complete lunacy. Thurman is lucky the World Boxing Association didn’t strip of his 147 pound title after his two years of inactivity.

Thurman plans on pushing Pacquiao back

“He has little T-Rex arms,” said Thurman. “Because Pacquiao is a small guy, I’d like to push him back. I want to get him on the inside and the outside. Manny Pacquiao does have a shot at winning this fight, even at the age of 40-year-old he has a chance of winning.”

To push Pacquiao back, Thurman will leave himself open to getting hit a lot, because the Filipino star normally doesn’t back up. Miguel Cotto couldn’t back Pacquiao up, and he had power comparable to Thurman’s. It’ll be risky for Thurman to deviate from how he normally fights, because he could walk into something. Thurman obviously wants to impress the boxing public by fighting aggressively against Pacquiao, but that wouldn’t be a wise thing for him to do in this fight. Keith has been out of the ring for too long to fight in an aggressive manner against an experienced fighter.

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