Keith Thurman Tells Us Manny Pacquiao Is 'Not Gonna Like the End Result' of Their Title Fight

Keith Thurman is a talker, like the kind that uses the third person when you chat him up. He’s also the kind of talker that isn’t afraid to say something that might upset people for the sake of entertainment. Which is exactly what he did when he said he was going to “crucify” the ultra religious Manny Pacquiao in the ring when the two throw down Saturday.

It was a comment made during the Los Angeles wing of the Pacquiao-Thurman promotional tour back in May that left many in Pacquiao’s camp—including the eight-time world champion and Philippines Senator—steamed. If getting their attention was his goal, it was mission accomplished for Thurman since Pacquiao told us the comment has been a major source of motivation heading toward their title fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas (FOX PPV, 9 p.m. ET).

“I just really wanted to hurt him,” Thurman says of the comment. “I wanted his crew to shut the fuck up and feel this.”

Pacquiao (61-7-2, 39 KOs) doesn’t really do much trash talking, leaving that for others around him. Like co-trainer Freddie Roach who has fired plenty of insults of the tamer variety toward Thurman (29-0, 22 KOs), like calling him “slower than Heinz ketchup” and telling everyone how “Manny is going to beat him 57 ways.” Thurman just laughs it off and doesn’t get why Pacquiao supporters have made such a big deal about his “crucify” comment.

“To me it wasn't that much a blasphemy,” says Thurman. “I believe God, too, has a sense of humor. So at the end of the day, man, I love my job. I enjoy talking trash.”

Less than two weeks before the two square up in Sin City for the WBA world welterweight title, we chopped it up with Thurman over the phone. One of the top fighters in boxing’s deepest division told us why you still haven’t seen the best of the 30-year-old boxer yet, why he thinks his style is perfectly suited to dispatch Pacquiao, and why he’s not concerned with the next fight.   

(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

This is the biggest fight you've had in a while and obviously the two year break kind of factors into that. I know it's not your first fight back, but to kick things off tell me how you're a better boxer thanks to you to your break away from the fight game.
Ultimately, this year is still a get back year for Keith “One Time” Thurman. I told everybody at the beginning of this year with my schedule fighting against Josesito Lopez, that they were not going to see the best performance that I've ever given, but that they will see a world class fighter and they will be reminded a little bit of who Kieth Thurman truly is. I showed that I can knock down tough fighters by dropping Josesito in the second. I showed how tough I am as a world class fighter by enduring the punches that I took in the seventh round. I showed my intelligence by how I recovered from that and went to finish out the rest of the fight, and win the fight, and I had ring rust. So for the first time in a long time I'm staying active and we're trying to take the momentum from one training camp to the next training camp. I know my [previous] performance wasn't my greatest. I'm prepared better for this fight and I'm looking forward to putting on a better performance.

So for those that haven't seen you fight in a while or maybe will for the first time Saturday, what version are they going to get of Keith Thurman?
They're going to get somebody who is in shape. I'm trying to be strong. I want to assert my dominance on Manny Pacquiao. I want to really make him feel uncomfortable in the ring. He's had some great performances lately, in the past year, but I just felt like a lot of those fights were going his way and at his tempo. I want to make it a little bit more uncomfortable for him. I want to hit him to the head. I want to hit him to the body. I think a lot of people never really got to Manny Pacquiao's body. It can be maybe because of his short size. But I'm looking to make a statement July 20th.

So the statement that you can make by beating Manny, depending on how you do it, where would that rank in terms of your career accolades?
Keith "One Time" Thurman arguably has been the No. 1 welterweight in the welterweight division since I dominated and unified the world titles. Of course you have other undefeated champions out there currently, but if you go resume for resume, even with a two year layoff, nobody has accomplished what I've accomplished at the welterweight division. With the victory over Manny Pacquiao it'll just make my resume even that much better. 

I'm not in control of rankings. I'm not a writer. I'm not a reporter. I'm an athlete. I'm an individual living out my dream and my passion and I'm grateful to do such things. I really care less about other people's opinions because I'm trying to make my dreams come true and I got lots of fans, I got lots of families, and lots of support and people that are proud of me and I'm also proud of myself. Whatever people say when I was injured for two years I don't let that stuff affect me because I'm living my American dream and I'm just going to keep on being a dreamer.

You've said previously that Manny's style was never a good style against your style. Why is that?
Well, I've shown the art of counter-punching throughout my career. I'm a boxer-puncher, which just means that I can trade with him, and him trading with me, there's no evidence that he has superior power than me. So I'm a real welterweight, too. When he fought Lucas Matthysse, Matthysse's not a real 147. When he fought Adrien Broner, Adrien Broner's not a real 147-pounder. He had problems against Jeff Horn and suffered a loss in Australia and he was a real 147-pounder. Terence Crawford went and out boxed [Horn] and beat him up. Manny Pacquiao's just not a technical guy. He's a world class fighter and that's what always makes him one of the fan's favorites. Because throughout the past six years in boxing, 10 years in boxing, you had Floyd Mayweather who was one of the best boxers of all time.

Manny Pacquiao's not a world class boxer. I had over a hundred amateur fights. I've been groomed for this sport. Manny's been brought up through the Philippines and through America he's got over a 60 fights, almost 70 fights now. He has all the experience a fighter could ever want. He had all the accomplishments a fighter could ever dream of. But at the end of the day, I believe that he's a world class fighter, and not a world class boxer, and a fighter like me could at any time of his career, even five, six years ago, always give him problems.

We know Manny is not a big trash talker. So I don't think a lot of us expected there to be trash talking flying between the camps and this one. Did you expect that?
No, we know Manny's reputation. He is a Senator of the Philippines. He's a Christian, he just has respect for the sport. He doesn't enjoy not being himself and being himself is just being a respectful individual. He lets Freddie talk trash. He might whisper some things to his friend in the back. Who knows? But at the end of the day, the trash talking doesn't really do anything. Real fighters know that. You've gotta be how we say nowadays in your emotions. You should never let a fight get emotional. You should train hard, train proper, and just do your best.

Manny had said that one of the comments, especially the “crucify” comment that you had made was serving as motivation. Freddie obviously has some funny things to say here and there, but do you ever take the trash talking as a huge motivator for you when you hear them slinging it your way?
No, because I don't take trash talking that comes from trainers. I only like hearing the thoughts of a fighter and I've had fighters really not say a lot to me in the past.

At the end of the day, you talk more with your hands in the ring. We talk more with our body language than with our actual language. I'm just happy that I got him motivated, and the whole purpose of saying that one quote that I had got a little bit of attention was really because we were at the presser in California and he had his whole crew. In New York he didn't have a lot of say, but in California when he had Freddie Roach with him and he had his whole Asian crew, he kind of seemed more alive and seemed more happy. 

He seemed more confident. Right? So I almost felt like I was on his home turf and I just really wanted to hurt him. And it's not even just Manny, it was his whole crew. I want his crew to shut the fuck up and feel this. You know what I mean? I'm coming for this. I'm coming for y'all. You're not gonna like the end result of this fight. You know? I just thought there was no better way to make everybody to kind of feel the result except for stabbing into the religious pool at the time. But I was born and raised a Baptist. I got love for Jesus Christ myself. It was just a quote. It's a biblical quote. They used to crucify many people back in the day. 

Last time we talked—which it's been a little while—you had said you love the idea of fighting on broadcast channels rather than pay-per-view and obviously a match of like this is never going to happen on regular broadcast channels. But in general, I know the landscape of boxing TV has changed recently, do you still want the majority of your fights to be on broadcast TV or do you now feel like you have ascended to the level of consistently being on pay-per-view and that's where you really want to be?
Well I think it's really hard to make this kind of money on regular broadcast network television. You want to make the big money. It's always been in pay-per-view. At the end of the day, my comeback fight in January was on regular FOX. So I think if it's a big major fight from here on out it might be pay-per-view. But I think if I'm taking tune-up fights or if I'm taking stay busy fights, who knows, we might be able to keep it on regular FOX. I'm proud to be a part of a company, or a network like FOX. For me, I think boxing was still doing great. I think we're moving in the right direction and I think FOX is a terrific platform to keep evolving the sport of boxing.

I'll get you out on this one, Keith. We always ask boxers about the next fight and I know there are plenty of options in the welterweight division and obviously mandatories always crop up. But if you could get any fight—obviously we're assuming here you take care of Manny—who do you want for your next one?
There is no next one.

You're that laser focused on Manny?
This is such a big fight and I've come back with two fights this year. We're going to take our time, we're going to sit down and we're going to assess our future after this fight. There's definitely going to be lots of options. There's going to be more fights this year that are going to unfold. You never know what kind of doors can open up. So we kind of got to play chess and we're not going to make a quick move. We're going to take our time. We're going to look at the board and then we're going to figure it all out.