Keith Thurman believes Floyd Mayweather had Errol Spence call him out
Former unified welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman (29-1, 22ko) feels Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr is the reason for current unified champion Errol “The Truth” Spence Jr was calling him out all those years ago.
Everyone should be familiar with the saga from back when The Truth was viewed as a boogeyman in the division. He was on the rise knocking on the door of a world championship, and his primary target was Thurman. Even before winning the IBF championship in 2017, he wanted the scalp of One Time.
Thurman was not very vocal about fighting the Man Down persona of the Texas champion. There was a time when he said fighting Spence was not on his to-do list. This statement brought enormous backlash as fans were starting to believe One Time was scared to fight him.
In 2018, during a SHOWTIME press conference announcing the upcoming fight cards for 2019, Thurman told interviewer Cynthia Conte that the moment was “not now” on fighting Spence. Furthermore, he called the then IBF champion a false prophet, and Spence immediately interrupted the interview calling for his rival to prove it.
OH, HOW THE ROLES HAVE CHANGED
Spence is now the top dog of the division, and Thurman is on the outside looking in. Ironically, he does not seem to hesitate anymore about calling out the unified champion for a fight. Thurman believes a fight with Spence needs to happen as soon as possible.
The unified champion, feeling some kind of way after all these years, does not seem to care about fighting the former unified champion.
“That shit ain’t happening, fuck Keith Thurman.”
During an interview with Fighthype, Thurman explained who he felt was behind making Errol Spence call him out.
“A little birdie named Floyd told him (Spence) to say my name. Why? Well, there are multiple reasons why a fighter in his position at that time would call out a fighter that is already in the limelight.”
“It was about changing the narrative. Right now we are talking about the narrative of Thurman, EJ, and what has all happened. But before Thurman-EJ, what was Thurman’s narrative? I was on Floyd’s back.”
GHOST IN THE MACHINE
Thurman continued to break down the change of events when he was the WBA Interim champion and mandatory challenger. He was unable to fight for the title because it kept changing hands. That was, until finally, Marcus Maidana lost it to Mayweather and he was ready to invoke his mandatory request. However, the WBA elevated Mayweather to Super champion status while Thurman was made the Regular.
The former unified champion believes this is when the former pound for pound kingpin told Spence to call him out.
“People like you (pointing to the interviewer) were starting to go to Floyd and say, ‘what do you think about Thurman’ . . . He kept pushing me off to the side. So to me, when EJ first said my name, he did not say my name. It wasn’t you. It was something somebody else told you to do.”
Thurman made a few good points. For one, if Spence’s goal at that time was to fight a top fighter, why not just fight Mayweather? He was still active at the time. Moreover, One Time was trying to fight Mayweather and Pacquiao, so why look backward at Spence?
“I thought it was very deflective. The boy was only 16-0, and I always thought there would be a great opportunity to face him one day in the future.”
By: Garrisson Bland
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