That statement came from Peter Kahn, a 25-year veteran of the fight game as a manager, promoter and advisor, who at this point is one of the very few fight analysts/observers who believes that Keith Thurman would beat Manny Pacquiao this coming weekend.
In his article titled “Manny Pacquiao Vs. Keith Thurman: How Thurman Can Reemerge As The Top Wel-terweight In The Division On July 20” published in the forbes.com on June 24, 2019, Khan said Pacquiao is being used by the fight outfit Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) to generate more revenues and fur-ther interest for a fight between Thurman and fellow undefeated welterweight Errol Spence Jr.
“I hate to say it because I am a big fan of what Pacquiao has done for the sport and outside of the sport, but I feel that Pacquiao has been set up. I feel that his entire signing with Premier Boxing Cham-pions was in the hopes that he would be able to avenge his 2015 loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. I feel that Pacquiao will end up being road kill for a big PPV showdown between Errol Spence and Keith Thurman before PBC looks to unify it all, most likely against Terence Crawford, if he’s still the WBO [World Boxing Organization] welterweight champion toward the end of 2020. Basically, PBC has been able to squeeze two PPV events out of Pacquiao to build a case for a Thurman vs. Spence showdown,” Kahn said in the article.
I agree with Khan that Pacquiao will have a hard time dealing with Thurman’s youth, height, reach and size advantages.
The scary thing is Kahn predicted Pacquiao beating Lucas Matthysse and Adrien Broner. But scarier than that is Kahn saw Andy Ruiz getting a chance to beat Anthony Joshua in their world title fight held on June 1, 2019. And we all knew what happened – despite being the heavy favorite, Joshua was de-feated and stopped in the first time of his career.
I hate to say this, but I find it unrealistic that many boxing analysts have taken a very positive view that Pacquiao would defeat or even stop Thurman. But some of these views are built on flawed theories.
Let me explain.
There are a number of boxing analysts and observers who still give reference to the Pacquiao who stopped both Miguel Cotto and Rick Hatton for the Filipino’s fight against Thurman. I find this insane.
The Pacquiao that beat Cotto and Hatton is more than 10 years past, and expecting that version of the Filipino to show up in the ring this weekend against Thurman is completely impossible.
I also viewed the training videos of Pacquiao that were nine to 11 years past, and it is very obvious the version of the Filipino training for Thurman is very much different from the one we saw training for Cotto, Hatton and Juan Manuel Marquez, among others.
The Pacquiao I saw who beat Cotto and Hatton was a buzzsaw that zapped opponents and left them in awe after they ate so many punches or got stopped. But the Pacquiao who beat Matthysse and Broner was not the Pacquiao who beat Cotto and Hatton. I need not explain why.
The other insane view that I have been reading and hearing from a number of boxing ana-lysts/observers is their comparing Thurman to Cotto or Antonio Margarito, who Pacquiao both beat to a pulp.
Cotto and Margarito were both plodders and had very limited movement in the ring, although they had respectable punching power. But Thurman is a notch above them in terms of skill and even punch-ing power, and while Margarito was a bigger than Thurman, the Mexican lacked defense and was there to hit by anybody in the ring. In fact, Margarito’s style of taking punches to land his own was both his strength and weakness, and Pacquiao took advantage of that with his speed.
I am not saying that Pacquiao would be easily blown off by Thurman. And I am still hoping that when the final bell rings, the Filipino would still emerge victorious and consider retiring, as I do not want to see him testing his luck further against the other undefeated top dogs at welterweight.
But I admit I have this feeling that Pacquiao should not have taken this fight, and I felt almost the same after Pacquiao’s fourth fight against Marquez was announced.
I hope I am wrong that Pacquiao should not have taken this fight, and also wrong that our compatriot has been set up.