Calvin Ford, the trainer for Gervonta Davis, says former unified welterweight champion Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman is being “smart” by swerving the barracudas in the division like Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Giovani Santillan and instead waiting on a big payday fight against Terence Crawford or Errol Spence Jr.
Unless PPC has promised Thurman to face the Crawford-Spence II winner, he needs to put the flute down, get up off the couch, and get back to work because he’s been out of the ring for 20 months.
‘One Time’ Thurman was mentioned recently as fighting WBA secondary welterweight champion Eimantas Stanionis on Showtime PPV on December 9th, but that fight is not happening.
That would have been a bad night for Showtime to put on a card because Devin Haney vs. Regis Prograis will be fighting on DAZN PPV that evening. Fans aren’t going to be excited at seeing an old, inactive Thurman face Stanionis on pay-per-view. That would have been a dumb idea for Showtime to have put that fight on.
Thurman is turning 35 on November 23rd, and he hasn’t fought in a year and a half since February 2022, when he beat 140-pounder Mario Barrios after coming off a 2.5-year layoff.
One Time Thurman looks pretty old, with his hair abandoning him and dark circles under his eyes. It’s great that he wants to fight Spence or Crawford, but he’s been waiting & hoping to fight one of those guys for years, and it’s never happened.
It’s frankly pathetic how Thurman has stopped fighting and put his career in a holding pattern, waiting for something that may never come.
When a fighter focuses more on money and not sport, you see this. Thurman and Andy Ruiz are examples of guys who stopped fighting because they were waiting for massive payday fights that haven’t happened.
Fans talk about Jermall Charlo’s inactivity, but Thurman has taken it to another level and is far, far worse.
The cherry-picking model that Calvin Ford talks about for Thurman (30-1, 22 KOs) is one that many boxing fans believe Tank Davis has been following his entire ten-year professional career.
That model is NOT good for the sport in the long run, as the fights that fans want to see don’t happen because it’s all about careful match-making, and some would say that’s the contributing factor for why Showtime & HBO got out of boxing.
Given how old & inactive Thurman has been since 2017, it would be a waste of time for the Crawford vs. Spence II rematch winner to bother fighting him because he’s no longer a big name with younger fans.
Yeah, the older boxing fans know of Thurman, but many of them have forgotten him due to his inactivity.
“Thurman didn’t care because he’s still a name. There are only a few names in boxing. Thurman’s name is mentioned in boxing,” said Calvin Ford to MillCity Boxing when told that Keith Thurman’s stock dropped from his fight last against Mario Barrios last year.
Ford sounds like he hasn’t been keeping up on things because Thurman is NOT still a big name. He’s from another generation, and he’s become part of the forgotten past.
Younger boxing fans don’t know who Thurman is unless they’ve seen him on YouTube, talking about the good old days when he was still an active fighter.
“It was his performance that made his stock drop because Barrios got stopped by Tank. Thurman couldn’t stop Barrios, but he [Mario] survived. That’s why he got the fight with Ugas,” said Ford.
“Now, Thurman is sitting in between. ‘I ain’t messing with Boots because I ain’t going to get what I want if I happen to get shut out. Right now, I ain’t going to mess with Boots because I know that type of fight,'” said Ford about Thurman wanting no part of fighting unbeaten phenom Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis.
Thurman is waiting for a big payday fight with Spence or Crawford, so he’s not going to risk his hide fighting Boots and get beaten up and embarrassed. He’s too old to compete with the young killers like Boots Ennis or even Santillan, who is 31, but would be dangerous for inactive guys like Thurman.
“‘So, I got to make sure that I wait on Errol Spence or Terence Crawford,’ because those two fights will pay him really good and he understands. Y’all don’t understand that Thurman is a company man,” said Ford. “When he first came on the scene, he was fighting everybody that they told him to fight, and that’s what made Thurman who he is.”
Ford has got it wrong again. Thurman got a nice payday in his fight with Danny Garcia in 2017, and after that, you can argue that he got comfortable, sitting at home, enjoying the millions that he made, and not wanting to go back to work. It’s nice when you have a lot of money.
That fight arguably destroyed Thurman’s once-promising career, as he’s only one big fight since, losing to 40-year-old Manny Pacquiao.
“Once he got married and had his child, he understood, like, ‘Wait a minute. This scenario changed. This is a different scenario now. I got to look at the future of my family now.’ That’s why I don’t knock with Thurman,” said Ford. “He’s smart with what he’s doing,” said Ford in making it clear that he likes that Thurman is swerving the killers and waiting year and year for a big payday against Spence or Crawford, which has thus far eluded him.
“Right now, he’s doing the business part of boxing, so when it’s all said and done [Translation: when Thurman retires], he’s good. He’s capable enough to get in the seats of commentating. I watch how he talks and the things that he do,” said Ford.
It’s not smart that Thurman is sitting inactivity because he could have made so much money if he’d stayed active with his career. He’s only fought three times in the last six years. While Ford thinks that’s being smart, this writer doesn’t agree. It sounds more like someone that is lazy and shiftless.
“His lifespan is good in the boxing world, but he wants to make sure that he seals the deal on the cash flow for the fights that he does into. Before Shawn Porter left, his name was one of those that was mentioned. Those certain guys need him [Thurman].”
