How to beat series: Keith Thurman

Keith Thurman is another young great hard hitting prospect in the welterweight division who is very sharp with his punches and has an impeccable record. He is a very good all around boxer who can punch as I see him (granted I don't have a great body of work to study from), he has only a few flaws in his game and I will break down how to beat him because of his flaws.

First of all to beat Keith Thurman I think you have to be a pressure fighter (Provodnikov, Maidana, Rios, ect... or a very slick boxer with very good footwork and lateral movement (Devon A., Tim Bradley, Mayweather, ect.).


A pressure fighter would be very good against Thurman because as a young fighter he has never been forced to fight out of his pace, plus Thurman loves to keep distance between him and his opponents to load of on his power punches from far away. As a pressure fighter against Thurman first thing you would have to do before trying to trap his by cutting off the ring is make Thurman circle to his right so he doesn't have leverage on his jab which he loves stepping into. It also takes away from his lead left hook which is a pretty good weapon. When making Thurman circle to his right you have to jab a lot to force him to try counter punch, Thurman loves executing a pullback right hand followed by a flurry of hooks, so when he pulls back for the right you must stay low, jab in and throw the overhand right and smother him so he cant take all of his straight shots nor his very wide hooks, so to prevent that inside you have to stick your head on his chest (Things Soto Karas was very effective doing) and work the body inside to slow him down as test his conditioning since he's only gone the distance 3 times in his career. And that's basically the best work you can do again Thurman as a pressure fighter from what I've seen and once he escapes outside you must stay out of his range and make sure to NOT feint before coming in because Thurman will punch faster than you feint because he has a counter punchers mentality and you must stick your head in his chest if he throws a any punch as you are coming in because he loves throwing combinations, he isn't shy about punching and if you stay still for any amount of time in front of him he will make you pay, you cannot give him space nor distance.

Now if you are more of a boxer and you have Thurman in front of you, the number one thing you need to be able to do is roll punches of your shoulders while bending at the waist (Something Bradley did very well against pacman) because when Thurman throws punches they come in bunches, you also have to time Thurman when he throws combinations because he always throws either a 3 punch or 4 punch combination which is usually a left hook followed by a right to the head and repeated to the body, or a jab followed by 3 hooks to the head. once he throws his combination you have to throw yours most effective when starting with a left hook or a straight right hand (Since he always carries his left hand low and his right hand too close to the front of his face instead of the temple area) and proceeding to the body since he always exposes it when hit to the head (As shown against Chavez the Argentinian).Also when boxing against Thurman a double jab then straight to the body combination or a right to the head and left to the body combination are effective blows when circling to your right because Thurman only pulls back one when trying to counter and doesn't expect you to throw extra punches especially to the body when you miss, and one last critical thing I saw with Thurman is that he throws a very hard jab which would temp you to try and counter especially since his left hand is so low but he does it on purpose as a trap that you can't full into in a boxing match with Thurman, when he jabs you back peddle towards your right and then to your left or vice verse, you don't just circle one way because he is great at throwing punches by timing your rhythm.


And that is my in depth analysis on how to fight Keith Thurman.
Please let me know if you see anything else that can be exploited in his game and let me know what other boxer you would like to see me fight next :good

 

Thanks you very much! I should have mentioned that no fighter has made him adjust yet so we don't know his adapting ability is but I'm a big fan of his, he replaced the hole Adrien Broner carved in my heart and I am looking forward to his future bouts.

 

Thanks

 

Those fighters didn't have relentless pressure they let Thurman get his space when walking him down giving him a good stationary target and chavez was move of a boxer puncher that a pressure fighter, im talkiing about an inside pressure fighter