Whilst talking to ThaBoxingVoice, former world champion Robert Guerrero discussed his upcoming bout with one of the upcoming stars of the sport – Keith Thuman. Guerrero discussed a bout he had with Andre Berto where both Berto and the public at large assumed the bigger, stronger Berto was going to walk through Guerrero and knock him out. Guerrero actually brutalised Berto in that fight. He knocked him down twice and bruised up his face severely. Berto managed to see the fight out to the twelfth, but if we were in the days of fifteen round fights it would have had to be stopped.
Guerrero is suggesting this fight may be a similar case, as going into it the public opinion is generally that Thurman will get a KO and move on to bigger fights, Guerrero is saying otherwise. Whilst Guerrero is certainly the underdog, he has pulled off similar upsets in the past and we only have to go back to 2012 to see him jump up two weight classes and fight an undefeated Selcuk Aydin to see this.
Thurman was not able to get a knockout against an older and less experienced fighter in Leonard Bundu, yet people expect him to get one against Guerrero. Whilst it is true the different styles could make for different results, but you see where I am coming from.
Guerero said that his strength in this fight would be in his ability to fight on the inside. Many fighters today simply don’t have the in-fighting ability that was once a common sight. Thurman usually unleashes powerful shots heading into the middle rounds of a fight once he has set up his opponent, but it may be a smart strategy for Guerrero to smother some of this work and bank away some rounds early which could lead to Guerrero having some openings later on as Thurman becomes more desperate. One thing is clear, there is very little chance for Guerrero to earn a stoppage here. He has never had a stoppage at welterweight even when he was pummelling the guys. His last stoppage win was at lightweight and even at lightweight his last three bouts there went the distance.
The fight is for the WBA (regular) strap and is taking place at the start of March. The bout could set up a huge summer fight for the winner as there are a ton of guys currently campaigning at welterweight who are looking for a big name to advance them to a title shot. What we could end up seeing though, if public wisdom is to be believed, is that Thurman will knock his man out and the strength of this performance would lead to him being even more avoided. We see a similar story at Middleweight where Golovkin continues to knockout bigger and better opponents which leads to even more space being created between him and Cotto.
