Thurman: Pacquiao has a great chance against Mayweather

In an interview with On The Ropes Boxing Radio, Keith Thurman gives his thoughts on a May-Pac fight.

Keith Thurman was asked about his assessment of a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, and “One Time” gave some refreshingly honest responses.

“Mayweather’s running out of options. Not only is he really running out of options, he almost can take his pick but at the end of the day, Mayweather is ‘Money May.’ For a certain duration, for the past several years of his career, his focus has really been on money, “How can I make the most money?”

“When I say he’s out of options, he’s really out of big money options, and Manny Pacquiao is that. Amir Khan won’t bring in the revenue, I wouldn’t bring in the revenue, Kell Brook wouldn’t bring in the revenue, which Manny Pacquiao can bring in. At the end of the day, what can you say? It’s a long awaited fight, I know the fans are gonna love it, I’ll be there. It’s great for the sport, to finally see two of the worlds most entertaining welterweights go toe-to-toe.”

I at least applaud Thurman for readily admitting that he wouldn’t add much revenue for a fight he’s been interested in for some time now. More often than not, fighters are so conscious of trying to promote themselves that they’ll grossly overestimate the kind of drawing power they have just because they want a particular fight. Thurman, however, appears to be firmly grounded in reality as far as a Mayweather fight goes so — credit given where credit’s due. Keith was then asked about Pac-Man’s chances in a fight with Mayweather.

“I still pick Mayweather, especially if the fight is happening at the MGM. Outside of that, Pacquiao needs to be the Pacquiao that made him famous. He needs to throw the punches, the combinations.

We know that Pacquiao is better than Cotto and Cotto gave Mayweather one hell of a fight. Maidana was able to land several good punches on Mayweather. I do see Pacquiao having a great chance of winning the fight, but I do believe that to truly win the fight he’s gonna have to at least create one to two knockdowns – A minimum of one knockdown to get that 10-8 round.

Manny is gonna have to be worried about the right hand, but he shouldn’t be too worried because it’s not Marquez’ right hand. Mayweather has suffered a lot of hand injuries throughout his career and we haven’t seen him get a knockout since his freebie with Victor Ortiz.

I almost see the fight fifty-fifty, but I still see the fight more leaning in Mayweather’s favor. He’s real technical, he knows what the judges are looking for, he’s really accurate with that right hand, he knows how to snap your head back when he lands it and it’s clear power punches that win fights.

It’s one thing that a lot of people don’t know, it’s the clean, power punches and Mayweather always finds a way to lands those punches, just cleanly, clearly and highly accurate. I’m gonna favor Mayweather until someone shows me a reason not to – and maybe it will be Manny Pacquiao on May 2nd. I’ll be cheering for both fighters, at the end of the day, I just want to see a great fight going down in the world of boxing.”

You know, Thurman really gives some astute observations in this interview. Firstly, Thurman pretty much acknowledges that it’s unlikely that Pac will be able to outbox Floyd, thus why he says Manny will need to score a knockdown or two to win on the cards. The only place I would slightly disagree with Thurman is when he say’s Pac shouldn’t be too worried because Floyd’s right hand isn’t a “Marquez right hand.” Marquez obviously put on some bulk in recent years and increased his power, but I’m of the belief that Floyd has a better educated right hand than Marquez, and that’s speaks for itself. Everyone who Floyd spars and fights always say that his right cross is a problem. Everyone knows it’s coming but no one can ever stop it because he’s so fast and sneaky with it. I mean, really think about it, what other fighter do you know that can use a lead cross as effectively as a jab?

Aside from that, I think Thurman is more or less right on the money (no pun intended) with his assessment on how Floyd is able to win fights with his clean and accurate punching, always landing the telling blows. And I can’t deny that I got a bit of a chuckle out of his comment on Floyd’s “freebie” knockout of Ortiz.