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Trainer addresses fabled Thurman-Porter sparring session

Fighters Network
23
Jun
Photo by Ryan Greene/Premier Boxing Champions

Trainer Dan Birmingham (L) beside Keith Thurman. (Photo: Ryan Greene/Premier Boxing Champions)

It may be important, an indicator, provide a heavy clue, or it may be nothing at all, just an exercise that occurred a few years, but a moment in time.

Keith Thurman, the WBA welterweight champ, is fighting Shawn Porter on Satuday night in Brooklyn and on CBS. They have done this before …

That was sparring, though. Sorta real, but not really, because when pay and Boxrec are involved, stuff gets real.

Dan Birmingham trains the Floridian Thurman, possessor of some of the best hair and most varied interest set in the game. Birmingham was asked today at the Manhattan presser to give a final hype blast to the Saturday tango by talking about that sparring.



What he saw, did he like it? Did it give him intel, did he take away things to capitalize on?

Birmingham said he’s quite confident the win streak will continue for the fighter he calls a “puncher/boxer” because they had Porter in for a spell about two years ago. “Keith is very smart, he can pick up on any little flaws he can capitalize on. And obviously he did pick up on some flaws, there’s no perfect fighter out there.”

And when – not if, but when – Thurman wins, according to the trainer, what are people saying come midnight Saturday night? “The Keith Thurman train keeps rolling. We’re looking for bigger and better things. Come on out, Floyd! Come on out and play, Floyd! If Floyd wants to fight the best out there, that’s him, Keith Thurman.”

Porter isn’t on that page. I asked him about that sparring history. “It was a proper representation of the fighter I was back then,” the Ohioan told me, recalling events he said happened in 2012. “I wouldn’t say I was a bad fighter back then, I just think that you grow, you learn, that was four years ago. My mentality has changed, learning and understanding things, precision, when you’re punching, not wasting energy, all those different things. I’ve come a long way since then.”

So, you read into this history what you will. Did Thurman gain the blueprint he employs Saturday? Did Porter improve a leap and a bound since the session? Saturday, that sparring either fades into obscurity as a mere memory or cements itself as a harbinger of Thurman’s continued climb up the welterweight mountain.

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