When it was first announced that WBO junior middleweight champion Tim Tszyu 24-0 (17) would face Keith Thurman 30-1 (22) in a 12-round 155-pound non-title bout at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 30, there was seemingly a singular view on how the fight would go.
Easy work for Tszyu.
After all, the 29-year-old Australian is in his physical prime and is coming off a stellar 2023 that saw him claim the scalps of Tony Harrison, Carlos Ocampo and Brian Mendoza.
On the flipside, former WBC and WBA welterweight champion Thurman is 35 and moving up in weight. He has boxed just twice in the past five years.
But not everyone is convinced that Tszyu will make short of Thurman. Retired former world champion turned pundit Shawn Porter is warning against writing off the American from Clearwater, Florida, saying that Tszyu “has the perfect style for Thurman” and that weight won’t be a problem.
“He’s not the smaller fighter and on fight night, he’s going to be just as big as Tim Tszyu,” Porter said to ProBox TV.
“In this fight, Tim Tszyu has the perfect style for Keith Thurman. If you look at the last two fights [Thurman] had in the last couple of years, those opponents [W UD12 Mario Barrios in 2022, L SD12 Manny Pacquiao in 2019] didn’t have the perfect style for him, which is why the fights ended up looking the way they looked.”
While Tszyu is undefeated and packs power in his punches, Porter views him as a somewhat predictable fighter who only knows how to box two ways. That style has been extremely successful for him thus far in his career, but Porter believes an experienced campaigner like Thurman will see holes he can exploit.
“Tim Tszyu is going to do one of two things. He’s either going to wait on the perfect shot. If he’s not waiting on that perfect shot, he’s walking directly towards you,” Porter said.
“Either way, Keith is going to bounce around the ring and pull whatever patience Tim thinks he has at this point of his career, he’s going to pull that all out of him and force him to walk into shots.”
Porters knows Thurman well, having shared a ring with him way back in 2016. Thurman was 27 then and has boxed just four times since, but Porter believes his former rival will be able to turn the clock back eight years.
“Keith at 154-pounds, I think he’ll have the power that he had once upon a time years ago. I think we’re going to see a version of Keith that we haven’t seen since he was in the ring with me,” Porter said.
“Keith Thurman is going to defeat Tim Tszyu on March 30th on Prime.”
