Keith Thurman On Manny Pacquiao Clash, “I Want To See What The Legend Is Made Of… I’m Not Jeff Horn!”

On July 20^th, Keith Thurman will enter the biggest fight of his career, a welterweight showdown with ring legend, Manny Pacquiao.

On July 20^th,Keith Thurman will put his WBA Super World Welterweight Title on the line against, ring legend, Manny Pacquaio. Thurman defeated, Josesito Lopez in January and Pacquiao defeated, Adrien Broner a week prior in January to set up this showdown. It was, Thurman’s first fight since March 2017. Thurman, AKA “One Time” has been on somewhat of a rollercoaster ride over the last 3-years. With huge back to back wins over, Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia, injuries would derail Thurman’s quest to sit atop the talented welterweight division and names like, Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford emerged during his 2-year hiatus to tend to his injuries. Now, “One Time” is back and out to prove that every other welterweight is still playing catch up to the vocal Floridian. First things first, he has to take care of all-time great, Manny Pacquiao, who at 40 looks to prove he still belongs. One thing is for sure, with so much on the line, July 20^th can turn into a very special fight between two very special fighters. Thurman enters his first PPV headline slot sporting a 29-0 record with 22 wins coming by way of knockout while, Pacquiao enters the ring with a 61-7-2 record with 39 of his wins coming by way of knockout.

I recently caught up with, Keith Thurman, you don’t want to miss his breakdown of how he feels this fight could play out!

2015 was the last time you had multiple fights in a calendar year. Did it take a, Manny Pacquiao to motivate that or a healthy, Keith Thurman to motivate that?

Keith Thurman: It took multiple things. I was satisfied getting the fights I wanted, you know. I was really happy when I hit the level when I got, Shawn Porter. A lot of people may not be aware, but I asked for, Shawn Porter a year before the fight ever happened. I wanted to be his opponent when he fought, Kell Brook, but they chose, Kell Brook. So, when the opportunity presented itself to fight, Shawn Porter, I was happy to get a name that I wanted. Then I got to fight, Danny Garcia after that. I could have took a fight after that later in the year; a stay busy fight. But I was like, for what? I’m pretty sure I was going to get, Danny next and that’s what I want, and I was in a position to finally get what I wanted. I had the car accident later in that year. I enjoyed some vacations and me… patience sometimes is a virtue. I figured, why fight. Let’s just wait for the, Danny fight. I’m really happy that I did because in that training camp I found out that I had bone spurs in my elbow. So, if I would have participated in a match before then, I most likely would have found out about my injury and I would have had to have surgery and the Danny Garcia fight would have never happened. Everything happens for a reason. I’m truly blessed.

What got me to fight twice this year, one… I fought in January, right. How can you fight in January and then fight again next January? That’s really slow. Besides that, this was a fight I couldn’t say, no, to and I wanted to fight twice this year because I needed to make up for my lost time. I was inactive for 2-years. I got a lot of criticism and different things, but what people don’t really understand is that, Keith “One Time” Thurman is out here living out a dream that I have been aspiring for 23-years in the making. I acquired the WBC championship by defeating, Danny Garcia. I was the only unified champion in the whole division. Why am I going to be ranked #1 and then become inactive for 2-years? That’s definitely not by choice. Now, I’m back and I’m active. I have a choice of how active I wanna be and here we are, we got two fights.

You mentioned the criticism you received throughout the process of getting yourself healthy. How much of that do you pay attention to and how much do you ignore?

Keith Thurman: I really don’t let it get to me and I don’t let it bother me. I just wish people would use a little bit more of their overall common sense and really just put some respect on the game. They don’t have to put respect on my name, they just have to put some respect on the game. We are world-class athletes. We are world-class fighters and we’re making world-class money. And anybody who is fighting on that stage and fighting on TV, they trained really hard. It doesn’t matter what their record is, it doesn’t matter if you just watched somebody get knocked out, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, boxing is one of the toughest sports in the whole world. There’s not team, it’s an individual sport, you gotta move forward, backward, side to side, throw punches and take punches for 3-minutes with a 1-minute rest.

There are a lot of sports out there that are singular sports that can be a struggle as far as cardiovascular and in terms of training and preparation. A sport like a tennis, but they’re not getting hit with the tennis ball and their rallies go for as long as they go, our rallies go for 3-minunte intervals. It’s an amazing feat when you make it to the championship level. Being a 12-round fighter in itself is an amazing feat, being a world-champion is a dream come true. I was very depressed with my 2-years of inactivity because I was not living my dream. Only dreamers know what it’s like to not live out your dream or have your dreams taken away from you. I’m just really blessed to be back into the sport that I love, be back in the spotlight and once again to be giving the welterweight division some of the exciting fights of the year. I’ve done it in the past and here I am doing it again and I’m really happy about that.

Even though the press conference was a few weeks ago, I noticed you were in really good shape already. Was this camp just a continuation of the Josesito Lopez camp and finally not a camp coming off of a layoff?

Keith Thurman: It was you know; it was not easy in preparation for Lopez. Lopez was fully prepared to fight because he knew he was on the list about 4-months before the fight. I had a 10-week camp. It wasn’t easy. I was just really focused on making weight and having my conditioning in order. I knew as long as I could move for 12-rounds he couldn’t beat me. It’s plain and simple and I proved that. I had friends that said, “Yo, I don’t think you stopped moving your feet the whole fight. You haven’t boxed in 2-years, you may have thrown this many punches or worked off of your jab a lot, but your feet were constantly moving and that’s impressive to me.” I told him, “Thank you!” We’re thinking momentum, I want to be more of an active fighter, I want to be able to stand down and trade and for that fight, I just didn’t have that confidence in me. I had so much lack of confidence in getting back in the ring. That’s why we needed a fight that was going to be challenging, but one that I knew I could rely on my overall boxing IQ and my boxing knowledge to get me through that fight and I did that. I’m moving on. I told everybody at the pressers, I trained myself out of L.A. Fitness for Josesito Lopez.

This time I don’t have one trainer, I have two strength and conditioning trainers and if you count, Dan Birmingham, I got three trainers for this fight. At the end of the day, I’m training this hard for myself. To once again show the world how great of a fighter, Keith “One Time” Thurman is. I’m training this hard in respect to, Manny Pacquiao. It doesn’t matter if he’s 40-years old. I wanted to fight him 6-years ago. That opportunity is today. Not yesterday and not tomorrow, my opportunity is here and now and I’m going to take full advantage of it.

Pacquaio is the smaller guy and I know it’s tempting to do all of the things you have been saying you want to do, walk him down, put pressure on him and things like that. That being said, do you feel like your fight IQ has to supersede your temptation to want to hurt and retire, Manny Pacquiao because he is still a threat?

Keith Thurman: I don’t have to do it [use IQ] until he gives me a reason to do it, right. Do you remember, Keith Thurman versus Diego Chaves?

Absolutely!

Keith Thurman: We went toe-to-toe for 4-rounds and I said, “You know what, he’s a tough son of a gun.” I expected him to be tough, everyone told me he was going to be tough and after 4-rounds, I know he’s tough and after 4-rounds, he should know I’m tough because we were going toe-to-toe, right. We were trading things back and forth; mixing it up. Something happened when he busted my nose. He hit me with a jab, and I said, “Man, I can’t be getting hit by nothing,” you understand. I said, “You know what, let’s show him our head movement, let’s show him a little bit of skills and tactics.” The second I gave him a little bit of head movement, his eyes looked bamboozled. Straight confused from the jump. I said, “Really though? That’s nice. That’s some good information. I had fun trading punches, but I don’t want to do this for all of the rounds,” and I think because he was champion, they might have been giving him majority of the rounds. The unofficial scorecards had it one way and the official scorecards had it another way, but I knew it was a close fight 4-rounds into the fight. I decided that in the 5^th round we were going to box him. We are going to plan B. Plan A was to get an early knockout. It didn’t happen. Plan B, I was going to introduce him to boxing, welcome to America, you signed the wrong contract, this is Keith “One Time” Thurman. I’m going to stick and move. He started to fatigue. I knew I would get that body shot in it was just a matter of time. I got that body shot in, he survived that round and then I closed it out 30-seconds later in the 10^th round.

I can see the fight with, Manny going something like that. This is my opportunity to be in there with a legend. I want to see what the legend is really made of. This is one in a lifetime opportunity. Can he really go toe-to-toe with real welterweights? Young, strong, undefeated, does he really have that in him? I’m not Jeff Horn. I’m definitely not, Jeff Horn. Does he really have that in him? He had problems with, Jeff Horn. That’s where my confidence is coming from. When I see him struggling with a fighter like that, who moves forward, puts his hands up and really just tried to bully him a little bit. At the end of the day, he didn’t really do anything devastating to, Adrien Broner and all Adrien Broner did was keep his hands up. If you understand defense, I don’t think, Manny Pacquiao’s offense is that intimidating if you have a good defense. If you just keep your hands up, I don’t think his offense is that intimidating. I think if you struggle in conditioning and you’re up against the ropes and certain things, he can pop a few in even if your hands are up. He throws from awkward angles. He can do some stuff, but I don’t think it’s really intimidating. So, at least the first 4-rounds, I gotta test those waters. If I see he’s as tough as he always has been and he deserves all the respect, he’ll get it. I’ll mix it up a little bit, move around, give him some angles and make sure I do what I always do which is find a way to win. No matter what, we are ultimately going to find a way to win.

You are very honest in your assessments and some may say you even reveal too much. Some fighters may reserve some of the things you say leading up to a fight. Is that because no matter what, you are fighting him on July 20^th?

Keith Thurman: We have a saying out here in Tampa Bay. When I was growing up, we had a saying okay, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it’s 4^th and 1 and we’re going for it. It may be 4^th and 2, we only need 1 to 2-yards, who’s getting the rock? Who are we giving the ball to? It’s only one man, his name was, Mike Alstott. You know, Mike Alstott is getting that ball. If we are going for it on 4^th down and we’re not punting it over to your team, you know we’re giving the ball to, Mike Alstott, but guess what… doesn’t mean you can stop it. It doesn’t mean you can stop, Mike Alstott baby! And that’s what it’s all about. At the end of the day, it’s your skills against my skills. I got a 0, I ain’t afraid to let it go, if you can beat me beat me.

Speaking of Mike Alstott, my man, Shaun King is the biggest “One Time” supporter I have ever met. We speak about you often.

Keith Thurman: He is a big fan. He comes and shows us love down at the gym every once and awhile. Shout out to, Shaun King.

The three southpaws you have faced that comes to mind for me is, Luis Collazo, Robert Guerrero and Carlos Quintana. Are you one of those guys that make a big deal about facing a southpaw or do you treat it like any other fight just facing an opposite stance?

Keith Thurman: At the end of the day, I’ve seen it all. I was a 7-time national amateur champion. I have always competed with the best fighters that the world has to offer. Even at a young age, I was sparring, Winky Wright, Jeff “Left Hook” Lacy, Antwun Echols, Andre Berto, Chad Dawson and Arturo Gatti. I was in the ring with all of them by the time I was 16-years old. So, at the end of the day, man, this is boxing. You got a jab, I got a jab, you got a straight, I got a straight. Your straight happens to be your left hand and my straight happens to be my right hand. I didn’t learn the sport of boxing yesterday. I learned this 23-years ago. There was a time back in my career where I had a problem with southpaws, but that times not now. I have been fighting southpaws for many-many-many years. You just gotta understand their angles, you gotta understand how to approach them and how they’re going to approach you as well. There is a saying in boxing, “Keep your foot on the outside.” And anyone that knows boxing knows that there is a reason why. My coach is going to tell me to keep my foot on the outside, his coach is going to tell him to keep his foot on the outside. We’re going to end up having this little footsie game, but guess what? I don’t care if my foot is on the inside or the outside because I’m comfortable in there. I’m going to find a way to get in between and land my shots; someway somehow.

We hear a lot of fighters describe their first PPV headlining experience with the obligations and the cameras. What has that been like for you?

Keith Thurman: I’m used to this. I’ve been champion for a long time now. I’m used to the camera crew. The only difference is, this camera crew is hanging around for like 4-weeks. But it’s not that bad. It’s easy to work with. I’m not like, Manny. I don’t keep 50-people around me. So, at the end of the day, I just try to stay focused. They barely mess up my regimen a little bit. They barely expend my time a little bit. I like to be on a clock. I like to be very militant. I like to eat at a certain time. They got me speaking at certain times and I don’t finish my meal at the time where I like to finish my meal; which is about 6:30 every day. But it’s fun. In its own way it’s fun. I know it builds the fight; it helps me get more exposure as well. This is the biggest fight of my career and it definitely feels like that and it should. It does feel like that and it’s just a blessing. I have worked my whole life to have these kinds of fights. I wanted to fight, Floyd, 6-years ago, I wanted to fight, Manny 6-years ago. Floyd is not here today, but here is, Manny Pacquiao and I’m just looking forward to getting in the ring and throwing blows real soon.

Good luck on July 20^th! Is there anything else you want to add before I let you go?

Keith Thurman: Thank you! Love to everybody that is looking forward to this fight. To all my fans, you know, this is just another stepping stone to more great fights to come.

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