Former WBA welterweight champion Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman was in Beverly Hills, CA to enjoy some time off since his loss to Filipino ring legend Manny ‘Pacman” Pacquiao on July 20th in Las Vegas.
The Floridian was with his beautiful wife, and they were in California doing some sight seeing and spending time together on a little vacation.
TMZ Sports caught up to Thurman to ask him what he thought of his fight and what’s next for the 30-year-old.
“I’m ready for the rematch,” said Thurman before heading into the Avra Beverly Hills Estiatorio to have lunch with his wife.
Thurman was impressed with the 40-year-old Filipino Senator’s ability to stay calm in their fight, he was expecting the younger wild Pacman, but got a smarter more calculated opponent on fight night.
“He (Pacquiao) just got off at a good start. I was behind and he was just a little bit calmer than I expected the Manny Pacquiao to be. Obviously at his age he’s calming down, he is not taking chances like a young fighter. He’s smarter, he has been through it all.”
Thurman who watched the fight when he got home, felt the bout was close and felt it was a Draw, the fight could have gone either way in his eyes.
“I got a lot of respect for him, but you know I still think that the fight was nothing more than a Draw. I don’t really think he won the fight. I know it was hella close and you know sometimes it’s a coin toss and in a coin toss it might be 50-50, and you gotta pick heads or tails.”
The former champ didn’t like the outcome, but said the payday made up for having to take his first professional defeat.
“It’s my first career loss, and I’m salty bro.” said Thurman in regards to losing for the first time. “No tears man, I don’t cry, what am I going to shed tears for? I got paid!”
What Thurman would like next is a rematch with Manny Pacquiao, and he feels the fans deserve it because the fight was action packed and lived up to the hype.
“Why not? I think it’s the best fight of the year! I might go to the Philippines so we can talk in person. I might have to go fly down there, apparently the Philippines love me now, they are big fans of Keith Thurman out there. Before they weren’t, but now they are, they loved the fight, they loved the action. It wasn’t the Floyd Mayweather fight, it wasn’t the Adrien Broner fight, it was a real deal championship boxing match.”
Manny Pacquiao might not be keen on a rematch with Thurman. After the bout he said he never felt that type of heavy handed power from his opponent since facing the much bigger Antonio Margarito for the WBC junior middleweight championship in 2010.
A possible fight for Thurman would be against Adrien Broner. Broner didn’t like Thurman using his name to ridicule him before the fight. Thurman said he would not fight like Broner who mostly ran, held and didn’t throw punches at Pacquiao. Broner laughed after Thurman was dropped by Pacquiao in the first round saying “You right, you ain’t A.B., I never got dropped by Pacquiao, you did!”
