"...yeah, Keith Thurman is pretty good, but he lacks passion"

He puts his tears into boxing?

My estimation of Keith Thurman as a man just f*cking plummeted.

 

You won't hear me saying a bad word about ol Smokey.

This is the reference of my tongue in cheek comment about One Time.

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Great speech.

 

Floyd ignored Thurman. Thurman ignored Spence. Thurman mentioned this specifically.

Floyd a terrible influence.

 

Well don't that make my brown eyes blue

 

His speech is good, but isn't he preparing for just his second fight in 3 years, while hardly having been active before that?

 

Thurman is full of ****. Thurman was always full of ****. He knows his championship career became a lame duck some time ago and is just straining to justify himself in some way.

What he's saying doesn't add up. There isn't really a lot of talk about him anymore, but whatever talk ("hate") there is "motivates" him? To do what? Run his mouth? The guy never fights. His next opponent is Mario Barrios. The guy Stumpy Tank just whooped. Thurman is actually talking about fighting Stumpy Tank, too.

Anyone remember when he was selling himself as the antidote to post-Floyd 'protect ya 0' culture? Yeah, that didn't last long. Funniest part was him trying to rationalize his sudden, uh, passion for 'smart business moves' as some kind of deep personal evolution or maturation — 'Um, y'know, like, not that long ago I was a young, impetuous buck who lambasted Mayweather and marketed myself as his throwback antithesis, promising to bring back the glories of the golden era, but, um, now, just a few short months later, having added the legendary scalp of Robert Guerrero to my résumé, I've, like, grown up and can totally see where Floyd is coming from.' He could have just admitted he'd been talking crap all along.

There's as precious little authentic fire behind this tirade as behind the moronic "don't duck me, thun" incident of a decade ago, when he played press conference badass with a former junior welterweight whose talcum hands and lack of physicality at 147 led most observers to identify him (not incorrectly) as the most beatable titlist at welter in 2012/13.

Seeing as I mention Paulie, now that's a guy whose fast mouth has actually been backed up with deeds. While fending off more genuine enmity than the trumpeted Thurman has ever had to deal with, boxing through chronic hand problems, Malignaggi brought passion to the entirety of his career and boxed a who's who, no matter how much he sells the latter part of it short by throwing up that mercenary front and insisting he was fighting for nothing else but the dough. We all saw how much a title in a second division meant to him. He even fought for an EBU title just to honor his heritage and say he'd been European champeen, for goodness' sake. Even that unpropitious and meaningless final bout as an opponent for Eggington saw a washed up Malignaggi fighting his heart out and requiring to be nailed to the canvas with a body shot before he gave out. That's what a man with some substance behind his talk looks like.


Anyway,

I'm a Fury guy, but to hell with this apparently fashionable idea that having the loudest voice in a room amounts to being the most passionate. Only sometimes is it the case, and very often not. Nobody ever hear of 'still waters run deep' anymore?

Passion is proved by what you do, not by how loudly (or even how eloquently) you can talk. Take this place. If I haul my ass to the boxing gym 2–3 times a week to train with intensity and spar, am I less passionate than any of the guys who make a point of knowing boxers' middle names and who scarcely miss a RBR thread? It's easy to generate passion for shooting the ****, but you find out how passionate you really are when it comes to making a physical commitment to discomfort and pressure. Bottom line, if Thurman was so deeply passionate, least compared to other professionals, he would've done more with his career — at a certain point after having made a bit of decent money and after opponents stopped flopping when he touched them, it became clear that he had less tolerance to discomfort and pressure than many of his peers. And that's fine, much bigger talents than Keith Thurman have gone AWOL down the years. Just don't bull**** me that some kind of burning fire exists within you is all. Corny ass.



To say something nice about Thurman;

While he may lack Malignaggi's balls, there's some evidence to suggest he could make a similarly sharp analyst. I'm more interested in hearing him behind a mic than seeing him behind a pair of gloves these days.

 

Was surprised he was that articulate. All that was an extemporaneous rant? No hate, was surprised. Feel like that thought deserves its own post.

 

Now onto Thurman's actual boxing abilities. He was oversold and overhyped. Ever since I saw him getting roughed up late by an over the hill Featherweight named Robert Guerrero I realized his power was a media fabrication. And then an even older blown up Featherweight put the pain on him years later. One time never had the power.

The power didnt translate.

 

Plenty of times I given into unjustified urges and behavior of machismo. So I'm just as gullty as the others. But in all seriousness, are some fighters tougher than others? Sure. Of course they are. Toughness is a big part of world level boxing. But you cant reach world level boxing without having a baseline of toughness and badassery that is pretty far beyond the average dude.

One example is Zak's regular threads accusing fighters of having glass jaws. Plenty of those guys he makes threads about have shown a decent chin even RELATIVE TO OTHER WORLD CLASS FIGHTERS! Let alone in comparison to us posting here. That type of stuff is pure machismo.

 

He needs to win his next fight relatively well to gain some much needed momentum.