Former WBA welterweight boxing champion, Keith “One Time” Thurman, underweight hand surgery shortly after his first career loss to Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao in July of 2019.
The 31-year-old welterweight told Marcos Villegas of Fight Hub TV that his hand was feeling a lot better and he is looking to fight again in late 2020.
He also had some insight on what went wrong in training camp leading up to his huge Pay-Per-View fight with Filipino ring legend Manny Pacquiao.
“In retrospect I am disappointed in the way I prepared for the Pacquiao fight,” Thurman told Fight Hub TV.
“I give myself a slide when I fought Josesito Lopez. It was a 22 month comeback and I had all the right to be overweight and not have the proper weight management under control. But understanding what was going into the future after that fight in Brooklyn, New York, I gained back 35 lbs.
The Florida native revealed that the drastic weight loss was the main focus early in training camp for the Pacquiao fight and he didn’t have time to really focus on his boxing training and strategy.
“In preparation for Manny Pacquiao, I lost 35 lbs in 11 weeks. All in retrospect I just don’t think that was a proper approach for me to be the best that I could be because so much of training was strength conditioning and weight loss not this fight drill, this ring work, and I need to get myself back to doing what I do best, which is fighting, moving, flowing, ultimately trading. But I did have a tremendous camp. I almost semi-worked myself to death, I worked myself into shape. It was the first three weeks of camp that was hard. Every Saturday I felt depleted for the first three weeks, after that I only felt stronger and stronger,” said Thurman.
Thurman also said that in 2020 he is going get his weight management under control and strength work done early so he doesn’t make the same mistakes like he did preparing for Manny Pacquiao.
