{"id":396915,"date":"2025-09-04T09:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T09:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/396915\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T09:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T09:44:10","slug":"thurman-thankful-for-chance-but-feels-fundora-is-in-this-position-because-of-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/396915\/","title":{"rendered":"Thurman Thankful For Chance, But Feels Fundora Is In This Position Because Of Him"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keith Thurman<\/a> stood on a chair Wednesday when it was time for him and Sebastian Fundora<\/a> to pose face to face at the end of their press conference in Los Angeles.
Thurman\u2019s prop emphasized the hilarious height difference between the 6-foot-6 Fundora and a former unified welterweight champion who stands 5-8. Thurman took a more serious tone when he thanked Fundora for the opportunity to fight for the towering southpaw\u2019s WBC super welterweight title October 25 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas<\/a>.
Thurman, 36, especially appreciates Fundora\u2019s willingness to fight him because he felt frozen out by other junior middleweights. The Clearwater, Florida, native also feels Fundora (23-1-1, 15 KOs) somewhat owes him because it was Thurman\u2019s biceps injury that created this. Fundora got to fight Tim Tszyu<\/a> on short notice in March 2024.<\/p>\n

Fundora, 27, defeated Tszyu (25-3, 18 KOs) by split decision in that bloody battle in Las Vegas. He won the WBC interim 154-pound title that night and was later elevated to full champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did my job,\u201d Thurman said of Fundora defeating Tszyu. \u201cHe\u2019s in this position because of me. I always heard he\u2019s a good kid, but he is because it\u2019s the right thing to fight Keith Thurman. Not only does it feel right, not only is it gonna be a great fight, but this man got options. <\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be real. You wanna know why I had to go to Australia? [Because] everybody\u2019s too busy fighting everybody else, leaving your man Keith \u2018One Time\u2019 Thurman on the [expletive] shelf. That\u2019s all they was doing. Playing games, picking up this check, that check.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thurman (31-1, 23 KOs, 1 NC) stopped Australia\u2019s Brock Jarvis<\/a> (23-2, 21 KOs) in his last fight. That third-round TKO on March 12 in Sydney was supposed to lead to rescheduling Thurman\u2019s fight with Tszyu.
Tszyu instead fought Fundora again. Sydney\u2019s Tszyu, a former WBO junior middleweight champ, surprisingly refused to answer the bell for the eighth round July 19 at MGM Grand Garden Arena<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tszyu\u2019s TKO defeat to Fundora eliminated a profitable option for Thurman, who happily accepted Al Haymon\u2019s offer to fight the champion in a Premier Boxing Champions pay-per-view main event.<\/p>\n

Thurman applauded the ascending Fundora\u2019s willingness to face such an accomplished opponent. Fundora has won three straight fights since Brian Mendoza<\/a> violently knocked him out in the seventh round of their April 2023 bout in Carson, California.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since I was in the amateurs, there\u2019s been no such thing as an easy Thurman fight,\u201d Thurman said. \u201c[It\u2019s never], \u2018Oh, I\u2019m just gonna beat Thurman. I\u2019m just gonna roll through Thurman.\u2019 You gotta really want this. You gotta want it in your legacy. And Fundora\u2019s at that stage of his career where he\u2019s getting some names, but he never got a name like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe saw it. He heard the proposal. It sounded sweet. I\u2019m a make sure it tastes bitter. But it sounds sweet. I\u2019m just gonna thank you, man. Thank you for taking this fight, Fundora. I salute you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keith Idec is a senior writer and columnist for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keith Thurman stood on a chair Wednesday when it was time for him and Sebastian Fundora to pose…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,10188,10181,10187,10186,10179,4496,10182,10183,10184,10185,10180,10193,10192,10175,10173,10174,10190,10176,10172,10194,10189,79,10191,10171,10178,16,15,10177],"class_list":{"0":"post-396915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-results","18":"tag-boxing-schedule","19":"tag-boxing-videos","20":"tag-disqualification","21":"tag-draw","22":"tag-fight","23":"tag-fighter","24":"tag-fighter-news","25":"tag-knockout","26":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","27":"tag-ring","28":"tag-ring-magazine","29":"tag-split-decision","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-technical-knockout","32":"tag-the-ring","33":"tag-top-fighters","34":"tag-uk","35":"tag-united-kingdom","36":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115145386601991735","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}