It’s the biggest and best welterweight fight that can take place today, and it would be one of the biggest in the division’s history for quite some time: a three belt unification showdown between unbeaten champions/stars Errol Spence Junior and Keith Thurman.
Spence, the new IBF champ, instantly called out Thurman, the unified WBA/WBC champ, after he had stopped a battered Kell Brook in Sheffield. So we know the talented southpaw wants it; but does Thurman? Thurman is currently injured and is unlikely to fight again until the end of the year, maybe in November or December. We may, then, have to wait until next year for this, an absolutely mouth-watering fight. It will be worth waiting for.
Spence not only believes he can and will defeat Thurman, he feels he will KO the warrior known as “One Time.” This would be some achievement considering the hard shots Thurman’s impressive chin has taken, from a marauding Shawn Porter most notably. But Spence, in talking on the Sway in The Morning show, said that Thurman has been KO’d before and can be KO’d again.
“I can knock him out,” Spence said of Thurman. “I I hit him [right] – with Keith Thurman, he’s been knocked out in the amateurs before. I’ve never been knocked out or dropped in the amateurs. He’s been dropped and knocked out in the amateurs. Everybody knows that. He can be knocked out, it’s been proven.”
Of course, ANY fighter, no matter how great, can be KO’d if caught with the correct punch, be it to head or body, and amateur is of course worlds apart from pro. But Spence sees other flaws he can take advantage of when it comes to Thurman. Spence explained how he saw Thurman “fade” is his fight with Danny Garcia and before that, his fight with Robert Guerrero.
Spence, 22-0(19) says he saw Thurman, 28-0(22) “fade” in the later rounds of these two fights and that Garcia especially should have come on strong to capitalise. Spence is not the first person to suggest Thurman might, just might, have a stamina issue; in the later rounds of a fight. Spence showed in his win over Brook that he carries his punching power into the later rounds. If Thurman “fades” in the championship rounds in a fight with Spence, is he in trouble?
It’s a great fight, on paper and in terms of the guaranteed action. With the stakes as high as they will be when these two inevitably do meet (so long as they both remain unbeaten), the whole world will be watching. It might not be as big as Leonard-Hearns, or even Curry-McCrory, but Thurman-Spence will be big enough. And the welterweight division needs it.