Keith Thurman Has the Skills and Swagger to Be a Unique Boxing Superstar
In a sport full of clones, clowns and copycats, Keith Thurman is one of a kind.
Compelling. Unique. Entertaining. Thurman has it all, and it’s not an act either. This guy is as genuine as they come.
“It’s natural for some people to just be natural,” Thurman told Bleacher Report. “You know? For me, all that is just natural. It’s just part of my nature.”
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Has there ever been a fighter—a good fighter—who turned out to be as unusual as Thurman? Every time I talk to the 27-year-old undefeated welterweight from Florida, I can’t help but to picture him on the other side of the line, sitting cross-legged on a green and grassy knoll, wood flute in hand, birds surrounding him...Keith just being Keith.
Thurman, the bird whisperer, on the phone talking to me about himself in the third person, taking a break from his solo woodwind jam session, long bushy hair falling down around his broad shoulders—a man looking like he was transplanted from Woodstock, 1969, to 40-something years later to be, of all things, a professional boxer.
I mean seriously: How awesome is this dude? He can flat-out out-weird any other fighter on the planet, except with Thurman, he totally pulls it off. And by the way, he can straight-up fight. He knows it, too, and he’ll tell you. He believes in himself. His team does. His fans do. He wants to be great, and he’s believed he would be since the first time he stepped inside a boxing ring.
“It’s up to me to live up to all that. But the belief and the faith are already there. Right from the start, I was Keith “One Time” Thurman. I’m here to give the fans what they want: to put on exciting fights and go for the knockout. “
Thurman is one of boxing's premier power punchers. He is probably the welterweight division's hardest puncher, and he knows how to use it.
But you wouldn’t know it if he walked up to you in the street. Maybe that’s his greatest appeal. Thurman, the fighter, didn’t change who he was to conform to some preconceived mold of what a fighter should look like and how one should act.
He is a real rarity, and every time I hear him speak, I am reminded of it.
It shouldn’t be so strange to us. Why must almost every other fighter in the sport, at least good, star-quality fighters in their prime, appear to be either pretending to be a poorly invented character or just a dude reading from a script that some manager, promoter or public relations firm wrote for him?
Nothing is as frustrating to a boxing writer, at least a semi-old, fully jaded one such as me, as hearing a boxer reel off the same three or four recycled talking points every single time he talks. I mean, some of these dudes should downright consider running for political office.
Ask them a question about any subject and their answer will steer things back to something about having the best camp ever or how much respect they have for their opponent. Oh, and clearly they aren’t looking past this next fight or at anything down the road. That’s what they always say, anyway, even when they’re set to face a fighter who has no hope to beat them.
But not Thurman.
“Five years from now, hopefully I’ve made a heck of a career for myself a big name for myself at 147. You might see me actually move up a weight class by then. There’s definitely potential for that.”
The next two years? Thurman is hoping to clean out the welterweight division.
“For me, it’s not so much about it being a tournament style as much as it is going back to the way it once was. Having pride in the fact that you’re a world-class fighter and that you’re ready to test yourself up against anybody in the world.”
The first time I saw Thurman fight on HBO, I wasn’t impressed. I had convinced myself beforehand he was just another one of Al Haymon’s puppet projects. Remember way back then? Around 2012? It seemed like Haymon, who has since split and formed his own televised showcase entity called Premier Boxing Champions, seemed to have HBO by the leash.
Haymon fighter after Haymon fighter appeared on fight cards, and it just didn’t seem right. Why was this dude on my TV again?
I don’t remember anything other than he won the fight, and no matter how well he fought that night, my mind was made up. He wasn’t a very good fighter. I just knew it.
But just a year or so later in San Antonio, I witnessed from ringside exactly what kind of fighter Thurman really was. Diego Chaves was no pushover. He rocked Thurman with hard, clubbing combinations that lesser men would have succumbed to that night. Thurman told me it was his toughest fight to date.
But Thurman was tough enough to get through it. Smart enough, too.
Thurman concentrated on fierce bodywork, and by Round 7, the hard-punching wood-flute player who sometimes looked like a hippie, was beating poor Chaves into a pulp. In Round 10, he followed a hellacious gut-punch with a malicious overhand right to the head for the highlight-reel knockout.
I’ve been intrigued, ever since, and since then he’s solidified himself in the boxing world as someone on track to take over the welterweight division.
Thurman has a title belt. He'll put his WBA crown on the line against Shawn Porter on Saturday night in what appears to be, at least going into it, his toughest fight to date.
“I try to look at it as just another opponent. But it is the biggest fight of my career. I never declare my toughest fight until [I've] been through it. It’s the biggest, but it’s up to him to make it the toughest.”
Thurman doesn’t just look like he’ll top out as being a titleholder. He looks like he can be so much more. I’m talking multiple welterweight unifications and a lineal championship at 147 and beyond.
“All I really try to do is entertain and give you guys the best in the ring,” said Thurman and in my mind a bird landed on his shoulder as he achieved complete unity with nature.
But Thurman can flat-out fight. He’s a proficient boxer with multitude of skills. He fights patiently, but with a singular goal in mind of knocking his opponent out cold.
“I try to give people good things to talk about.”
All that stuff is great. Truly important. But what really sets Thurman apart from his peers is the addition of what kind of dude he is outside the ring. It isn’t that all his boxing skills and innate abilities aren’t important in their own right, but they're so magnified by his mountainous charisma.
The fighters we remember most, after all, aren’t the ones who win every single fight. Muhammad Ali wasn’t “The Greatest” just because he had a good record.
The true greats of boxing force us to be interested in their personalities, too. And Thurman is exactly that kind of fighter.
Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand.
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