WBA welterweight champion Keith Thuman (24-0, 21 KOs) is looking to maintain his high KO percentage when he takes on former two division world champion Robert Guerrero (32-2-1, 18 KOs) in their upcoming bout on March 7th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Currently Thurman has won in all of his 24 outings and has taken 21 opponents out within the scheduled distance. In his last fight Thurman went up against long time European champion Leonard Bundu who had not had a loss in 33 fights, but failed to get the stoppage that has come to be expected of him. If he does not stop Guerrero people will start to say that he cannot maintain the same level of offense when he is against world level competition.
When you look at the people Thurman has beaten it would indicate that he is ready for the best in the world, a KO over then undefeated Diego Chavez, a KO over respected Jesus Soto Karass and now the decision over Bundu. He is ready for the step up, and Guerrero is the perfect opponent at this stage. What is also interesting is that Thurman has been promoted from WBA interim champion to WBA full ‘regular’ champion, meaning he is now a world champion but didn’t really take the title from anyone. This can be seen as his first title fight for a ‘full’ championship.
Guerrero is a good fighter with only 2 losses in his 32-fight career, one of those being to Mayweather. This is not going to be an easy fight for Thurman. The reason for this is that Guerrero has picked up the nickname ‘the ghost’ for being difficult to hit, and it doesn’t matter what kind of punching power you have if you cannot hit your target. Whilst Guerrero’s last opponent Yoshihiro Kamegai didn’t seem to have any difficulty in finding the target during their thrilling bout, we will see if Thurman can get similar or better results.
It is believed that this fight will be Thurman’s coming out party onto the world stage and I would have to agree with him being the favorite, but whether or not Thurman can pull off the stoppage as he predicts is a different question entirely, either way there is a good fight scheduled for March 7th.
