Keith Thurman says he would have “slapped” or “choked” Brock Jarvis into a state of unconsciousness if he’d trash-talked him during their meeting in the gym last week ahead of One Time’s comeback on March 12th at the Hordern Pavilion, in Sydney, Australia.
Jarvis (22-1, 20 KOs) noted how slow the 36-year-old Thurman (28-1, 22 KOs) looked inside the ring and there wasn’t much he could say about it other than he was tired from all the media interviews he’d done this week to promote the fight. He looked very old.
The former WBA and WBC welterweight champion Thurman is making a comeback after three years out of the ring. He’s got the perfect opponent to use as a tune-up in Jarvis, 27, who has looked very limited since being knocked out in the first round by Liam Paro in 2022.
“This boy ain’t been talking all week. He wanted to talk about my shoes. It was pathetic, but I had to act like I was offended,” said Keith Thurman to Jeff Zimmerman’s YouTube channel, about how he and Brock Jarvis exchanged trash talk in the gym.
“I was right in front of him. He’s lucky he can’t talk s***, because if he knew how to talk s***, he’d have been slapped. He would have at least been choked out. I would have put hands on him. Something about being in my space and it being on fight week.
“Give me a reason to not like you and I’ll take it because this is a kill or get killed sport. Come fight week, I got murder on my mind. It’s like metaphorically, I want to chop your head off. We’re only going to box. When I see my opponent on fight week, I see them headless.
“I’m happy he doesn’t know how to talk trash because he could have got me in another space. It was a good fight,” said Thurman when asked why he still wants to fight Tim Tszyu after he lost twice in a row. “You saw the banner. Thurman vs. Tszyu.”
Thurman’s reasons for still wanting to fight former WBO junior middleweight champion Tszyu is more about money than competition. If this comeback was about the sport, Thurman would target the guys that beat Tszyu, Sebastian Fundora, and Bakhram Murtazaliev. He’d receive a lot more credit for beating those two than Tszyu,
