Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman sent a message of support to Errol Spence Jr last night to give him some encouragement after his defeat last weekend against Terence Crawford in their headliner on Showtime PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Thurman had taken a few verbal shots at Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) over his, calling him “flat-footed” and saying that he’d never faced a boxer before.
He told Crawford that he’s not flat-footed like Spence and that he should give him a title shot. It was kind of a low way of talking his way into a title shot by mentioning the beaten Spence and putting his ability above his. Talk about kicking a dog when he’s down.
It’s unclear what Thurman’s ultimate reason for coming out is to give Spence words of encouragement. Was it guilt on Thurman’s part after the way he’d denigrated him yesterday and last Saturday, or is it a strategic moving, not wanting to burn bridges and hoping that he can get a fight against him if Crawford ignores him?
There are only two potential big payday fights out there for Thurman before he wraps up his career, and that’s Crawford & Spence if Crawford chooses not to give Thurman a fight, that leaves only Spence.
There is no going back if Thurman has wrecked things with the way he denigrated Spence about his performance and used him basically as a prop to try and talk his way into a fight with Crawford.
It might be too late for Thurman to repair the damage. He may have destroyed any chance of returning to where he was before with Spence by bad-mouthing him. Thurman should have seen the big picture when he started lighting into Errol.
It could be that Thurman was confident that he would get the Crawford fight, but that’s probably not going to happen because he’s focused on fighting relevant fighters that are active in their career.
“What’s up everybody, what’s up fight fans? You already know what I talked about this morning in my shout-out over there to Crawford, but this ain’t about Crawford tonight right now, man,” said Keith Thurman on social media.
“I ended my night pretty good. All the blessings with the guru. All the meditation, everything that came out to do. Get away from that energy that I was leaving in Vegas. All the arguing and the screaming with the fans, fighting with everybody.
“I know I’ve been making a lot of comments, talking about the performance. Everybody asked for my insight, and I’d be keeping it real, but outside of that man, besides me clowning and me being my authentic self at all times, unfiltered for you people.
“I just want to remind you all, man, that boxing is brutal, and I just want to send love to Spence. I told people we don’t know the injuries that he’s been through in life.
“Only he knows, only his team knows, and whatever he’s going through, I hope he recovers soon. God bless that boy, okay,” said Thurman.
