Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia will meet Saturday night, March 4 on CBS (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT) for one of the rarest events in boxing, a title unification bout. Thurman and Garcia will put their WBA and WBC welterweight titles on the line respectively in only the 10th unification bout in the history of the 147-pound division.
Part of what makes the March 4 bout so special is that both fighters enter as undefeated champions, making it only the third unification bout in the welterweight division’s history between fighters with unblemished records (the first since Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya in 1999). Thurman (27-0, 22 KOs) and Garcia (33-0, 19 KOs) are both 28 years old and the winner of this bout will stake claim to the title of king of the welterweights, which has been boxing’s premier division for the past decade-plus with the likes of Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and Timothy Bradley all holding belts in recent years and other historical greats like De La Hoya, Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns.
Mayweather is the most recent unified champion after he held the WBC, WBA and WBO belts following his mega-fight with Pacquiao in 2015. Since his retirement, there has been a void in the welterweight division for a true superstar. The winner of Saturday night’s bout at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn will take a big step into filling that void, and unlike Mayweather, both Thurman and Garcia are known for being active, power punchers. According to CompuBox, Thurman lands 48.2 percent of power punches he throws while more than 80 percent of Garcia’s punches are of the power variety, both of those rating 10 percent higher than the division average.
For boxing’s flashiest division, Garcia and Thurman offer an exciting style that was lacking from Mayweather in the latter half of his undefeated career. Thurman in particular is something of the anti-Mayweather in the ring. He came up as a knockout artist and has grown into one of the sport’s great all-around fighters, but that development into a boxer-puncher hasn’t taken away the constant threat that he might end a fight early with one punch (hence his nickname “One Time”).
Thurman spoke with UPROXX Sports recently about his growth as a boxer, from being a fearsome puncher to becoming a well-rounded boxer, what he expects from Garcia on Saturday, his legacy in the welterweight division, making the best fights happen and his incredible bout with Shawn Porter from 2016.
How has camp gone and how are you feeling now that we’re a week before the fight?
Well, we’re a week out so I hope camp went well, right? [laughs] No, camp’s great. I’m truly looking forward to this fight. I had time off, but I used my time wisely last year. I took several vacations and all that down time actually made me very eager to get back in the ring and get ready for this fight. We’ve had a great camp and look forward to going back to Brooklyn, New York and putting on another tremendous fight for the fight fans in New York and everybody that will be tuning in worldwide.
You talk about that layoff, and I know you don’t get completely out of shape when you have that layoff or anything, but what are the biggest challenges when you first get back into camp? Do you start it a little earlier and how do you fight any kind of ring rust when you get into camp after some significant time off?
I don’t think ring rust is an issue unless you’re sitting out for like a year or so, you know, and if you really sit out for a year and then you try to only spend eight weeks getting ready for a fight. That’s going to be a problem. But, yeah, I kinda started camp early. We made a 10-week camp for this fight, which gave us plenty of time. I feel good. I feel strong. I feel better than the Porter fight. And I’m hoping I put on a better performance and show the world a terrific performance and what Keith “One Time” Thurman has to offer the welterweight division. You know, this fight means more, so I’d like to make a bigger statement.
How exciting is it to be fighting in a unification bout and it’s only the third unification bout between undefeated fighters in the history of the division. What’s that mean to you and has it made for a more exciting camp?
Really it’s just an exciting camp because it’s what I asked for. I asked for the Porter fight as well, but camp got disturbed because of my injury when I had a car accident which made preparation for that fight more difficult. So that’s probably why I’m a little bit more enthusiastic about this fight, is because we don’t have anything crazy like whiplash and we’re not coming off of an eight-week recovery from therapy in preparation for this fight. But, the fact that it’s a unification bout, I just feel honored to get what I’ve always asked for. Which is to be world champion, the welterweight champion, and getting another title. The welterweight division is my division. It’s where I want to stake my claim and make history. And next Saturday will be a part of that history. So, for me it’s just my dream’s coming true. It’s always been dream to be an elite American fighter and here I am doing that, but this unification bout just solidifies my own legacy. So, me and my team feel well prepped for this fight. We feel confident stepping into the ring against Danny Garcia and we’re going to be trying to get a tremendous victory.
The welterweight division has been, for the better part of the last decade-plus, the premier division in boxing. Is there an added point of pride in this division, having the chance to be unified champ and just holding and defending a title in such a prestigious division?
The division has been strong for a long time. It’s been strong back in the day too. The welterweight division has a lot of history, so I’ve always had pride competing at the welterweight division and it’s been an honor to move up in the ranks of the welterweight and then become the champion of the welterweight and now the unified titles of the welterweight, like I said, it’s for me the start of creating my own legacy. Only so many fighters in the history of boxing have been champions of the welterweight division. We’ve accomplished that. Fewer fighters have been unified champions and we’re going to accomplish that next Saturday. It’s an honor. It’s a blessing and it’s what I’ve worked my whole life for. So it’s about living my dreams and making my goals and my dreams a reality.
In boxing it’s refreshing to see two guys wanting to actually make the best fights, when business and such so often gets in the way. What is your philosophy on making fights and is it something you wish would happen more in boxing that guys would try to make the best fights happen?
I can’t speak for everybody, but I got a “oh, I’m not afraid to let it go. If you can beat me, beat me” mentality. There’s times to do things on a political banner. Maybe postpone a fight a little bit, or this or that. But I call that “fight lag,” right. I wanted to fight Shawn Porter before I was ever champion. I wanted to fight Shawn Porter when he was the IBF champion. I wanted to obtain the title from him, but you’d probably have to do some digging or a little research, but there was an article written about how Kenny Porter said, “well, we don’t need to fight Keith Thurman right now.” They knew that I was in position to get a world title. They said we can wait until he has a world title and Shawn has a world title and then we can fight for a unification bout. It didn’t happen like that, but what did happen is we didn’t fight at the moment of that discussion but we did fight later. And it didn’t take a whole lot later, but it did roughly take another year with a few added months due to my injury and stuff.
So, fight lag is a thing that happens and sometimes it is beneficial. And I think that’s the only time it really matters is when it’s really beneficial. I’m not a big fan of the Mayweather-Pacquiao scenario, where the fight lag happened for multiple upon multiple years. It’s one thing for a fight to take one year to really manifest. It’s another thing for a fight to take two years, but once the fight takes three, four, five years to manifest, in my opinion, you’re wasting everybody’s time. It’s something that should be happening, and you’re prolonging entertainment in the world of boxing.
What are the biggest challenges you see Garcia presenting in the fight and things you’re looking for him try to do that you’ve seen from him in previous fights?
I think he’s just going to be calm. I don’t expect him to come in there being ultra-aggressive. He might get a little active with his power punches. He’s known for being a good power puncher, that’s normally how he wins his fights. He’s always willing to trade with anybody he’s been up against. For the most part, he’s fought moving backwards a little bit. He’s fought coming forward some, but I just expect him to be ready to fight. I expect him to do his best, to do his job and try to hurt me.
I know his camp believes that I’m vulnerable to the body. I’m not assuming that he’s going to really attack my body right away, but I’m going to pay attention and try to figure out their game plan and their strategy as soon as possible to make it difficult for them to execute whatever they plan on doing.
I remember watching you in 2012 and 2013 when you were first emerging as a title contender. From then to know, what would you say has been the biggest improvement to becoming a champion and what have you learned over the years as, you’ve always had knockout power, but it seems you’ve really grown into being a patient, well-rounded boxer?
Just allowing myself to compete in a 12-round fight if it’s necessary. You know, we dropped Robert Guerrero in our fight. We were unable to stop him, and we tried to stop him towards the end of the round we dropped him in and he survived the round. And I knew I was winning the fight. Ultimately, I want to win. Nowadays I’m always planning on winning the fight and if I hurt you I like to end the fight, but if I’m already winning the fight, there’s no need to end the fight, because the fight’s going to end and a lot of times I already know if this fighter is a threat or not.
Another example is when I started off having a competitive fight was Diego Chaves in the opening rounds of that fight. I decided to box a little bit more and I saw that it made it a lot easier to not force the action, but to maneuver and be a little more strategic and I was able to win some rounds. We made him fight intensely, which was my intention, for the first four rounds, and I think he thought, like I thought my power would get rid of him, that his power would get rid of me. The problem is, both fighters didn’t go nowhere. So, later on in the fight I noticed he was sitting down in the chair when it was time to stand up. And that was the first signs of fatigue. A few rounds later, he does it again. He did it consecutively round after round, when I realized he was tapping into some fatigue. And I said to myself, well now it’s time to drop this kid and I’m pretty sure the punch is a body shot. I wanted to do it in the eighth round, the opportunity didn’t present itself until the ninth round. And then even though I dropped him, we didn’t stop him in the ninth round, but we did close the show at the start of the tenth round.
I’ve just learned a lot. Bundu, I dropped him in the first round and I didn’t try to close the show. I said, “ah, you trained hard for this fight, Keith, if it was this easy to drop him in the first round, you should drop him again by the fourth or fifth.” Bundu got very conservative with his herky jerky movement and he didn’t want to take any chances, and I was already winning the fight. I said to myself, this is a great opportunity to execute some of the boxing skills that you have developed and this is most likely going to be a 12-round fight. After every single round, my trainer said, “just keep boxing, just like that. You’re winning this fight hands down, Keith. Come on, just keep boxing.” So, I just listened to my corner and thought, hey, you’re getting paid it doesn’t matter if you stop this guy or not. You know, it was a perfect opportunity for me to get some more 12-round experience, so I took advantage of that. Over the years, I’ve just gotten more 12-round experience and I’m just ready. I’m ready for the fight. I’m ready for the brawl. I’m ready to get my man out of there, but also win these bouts based on the scorecards. I proved that in the Shawn Porter fight once again. So that’s how I feel I’ve developed throughout the years.
I feel like a lot of guys that come up as power punchers have to learn that the hard way by losing a fight they could win on a decision by being too aggressive. How hard is it when you possess that kind of power to not be tempted into going for that knockout?
Even though I’m a knockout puncher, like you said a lot of fighters who are like that are usually really aggressive and they normally learn patience after they’ve taken a loss. I just understand the sport of boxing and the simple fact that I’ve developed into more than just a puncher. I’m a boxer as well. So, you know, it’s my job, and I’m entertaining you guys, but ultimately I’m entertaining myself when I’m in the ring. And I’ve just kind of developed more of a boxer-puncher mentality. I’m somebody who’s willing to box, somebody who’s willing to punch and I enjoy both sides of the show. I enjoy both sides of my fighting abilities. For me, it’s all fun. So, if it’s all fun, it doesn’t bother me which way I get this victory.
I hurt Shawn Porter several times in the fight and it was obvious, and with that you get to see that Keith “One Time” Thurman is, was and will always be a powerful puncher. The level of competition has stepped up. It’s not as easy to stop these guys as it was early on in my career, but if I hurt you, I should be able to finish you. It’s just a matter of putting the right punches together. And, it all depends on how the fighter reacts when they are hurt. Shawn Porter did a good job of tying me up and fighting back in scenarios even though he was hurt. Sometimes he’d fight back, and sometimes a good offense is a good defense and that kept him alive and then the bell came “ding” and then you get to recover. Like I said, man. It’s all a show. It’s all fun. It’s part of the job and I’d love a knockout next Saturday, but I’d take a 12-round win too.
The Porter fight last year was incredible to watch. What do you take away from that fight and is there anything you learned that can help you moving forward?
I just showed that I can take a barrage of punches. Right? A barrage of punches isn’t going to stop me. I’ve proven that I can handle myself when I fight with a hematoma. I can handle myself when I fight with a cut over my eye. I just know how to handle myself. If you haven’t realized that about Keith “One Time” Thurman, just go back and watch some tapes. I’m tough. I’m as tough as it really gets and I don’t think people realize how tough I am until they start putting me in the scenario where I have to show them my true colors, and I believe I did that to Shawn Porter.
