By Dan Ambrose: Inactive gatekeeper Keith Thurman is trying to hustle a fight against the winner of this Saturday’s mega-clash between welterweight champions Errol Spence Jr & Terence Crawford.
Fans have asked for Thurman to get off his backside and earn the right to fight Spence or Crawford by facing Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis instead of a soft opponent. The sense of entitlement that Thurman has is hard to ignore.
Beating Boots is all Thurman needs to do to pick up his golden ticket for a fight with the Spence vs. Crawford winner. But it seems clear that Thurman feels he is deserving of the fight based on what he did six years ago when he was on the top of his game, active & motivated.
That’s before Thurman slipped into inactivity and let inertia set in like cement. With the millions that Thurman made fighting Manny Pacquiao & Danny Garcia, it’s understandable why he stopped fighting.
Why work when you can bum around and sit on your backside, enjoying the millions that you made?
Given the inactivity that Thurman has had in the last six years, he needs to beat one of these guys to earn a fight against Spence or Crawford:
– Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis
– Eimantas Stanionis
– Tim Tszyu
– Subriel Matias
– Brian Mendoza
Thurman says he’s going to take a tune-up fight next, and then he wants to face whoever emerges the winner of Spence vs. Crawford.
The 35-ish Thurman (30-1, 22 KOs) feels he deserves a shot at the winner of the Spence-Crawford fight despite the fact that he’s only fought three times in the last six years.
Thurman’s inactivity since 2017 is unreal, and listening to him talk about his meditation for six minutes of an interview today, it appears boxing has not been a priority for him in the last six years.
Why ‘One Time’ didn’t fight Spence
“Back then [2015 to 2019], the fight could have happened, but look. The one thing is, I never heard his name as a potential opponent, period. Not once in my career until late last year,” said Keith Thurman to Fighthype about why he chose not to fight Errol Spence Jr when he held the WBA welterweight title from 2015-2019.
In other words, Thurman ducked Spence when he wanted to fight him from 2015 to 2019 and only started showing interest when he was needy & down and needed a pick-me-up after ‘One Time,’ ruining his once-promising career with inactivity.
“Where’s the real talk? Where are the real negotiations? Never once in my career got put up on the table. So what was happening is the same reason why he’s not fighting me today,” Thurman continued about Spence.
“When the best fight the best, it should be of a certain caliber. The fight we’re going to see this weekend [Spence vs. Terence Crawford], this fight is of a certain caliber.
“If Thurman would have fought Spence the day that he said my name because he could put some syllables together [from 2015 to 2020], he would have been paid one points something [million], if that. He wasn’t worth a lot.
“I would have been paid something respectfully, but real boxers know that real champions if they fight at the right moment, the world needs to recognize what kind of fight it is. If Thurman had fought Spence, we could have got the fight over with, but the world would not have acknowledged the greatness of the battle at the time.
“I got to unify the [WBA welterweight] title against [WBC champion] Danny Garcia [on March 4, 2017]. There were bigger fights on the table [than Spence]. There were bigger fights on the horizon. Unfortunately for me, after Danny, there was elbow surgery. After Pacquiao, there was hand surgery. This is my story.
“In 2019, if Thurman doesn’t lose to Pacquiao, I would have fought Spence last year. How do I know? He [Errol] fought Ugas. Did anybody really care about that fight? Put Thurman on that platform [against Spence], and tell me that it’s not bigger, better & greater [than Spence-Ugas].
“Unfortunately, there was never that setting back then [from 2015 to 2020], and when the setting appeared, Ugas was the [WBA] champion. Thurman didn’t have his title no more,” said Thurman.
Thurman wants Spence-Crawford winner
“When there’s another fight out there, and you’re chasing after world titles and the guy that is trying to fight you doesn’t have a world title, it’s not that enticing,” said Thurman in revealing why he chose not to defend his WBA welterweight belt against Spence when he was a challenger, wanting a title shot.
“It’s very unfortunate. I still would like to fight the winner of Spence-Crawford or the loser of Spence-Crawford. The truth is, Crawford has never seen Thurman. Spence has never seen Thurman. It’s things like this that make boxing great.
“If Thurman has to go up to 154 to make these big fights happen [against Spence & Crawford], then so be it. I’ll do it. Let’s get back in the ring; let’s get a respectable fight [read: tune-up] on this year’s calender,” said Thurman.
