Manny Pacquiao has just acquired the WBA ‘Super’ welterweight title after he defeated Keith Thurman, who was previously undefeated. The so-called fight of the year was held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Although already in his 40s, the Filipino boxing legend went into the fight with Thurman just as he went in against previous foes of his youth. Pacquiao was able to knock down Thurman a bit early in the opening round; however, he still ended up having to go through all 12 rounds before he was able to full succeed.
The results of the fight was not unanimous, however, and two judges scored the fight at 115-112 in favor of Pacquiao. The other judge awarded the match to Thurman at 114-113.
After the fight, Pacquiao went on to state that he believed the knock down was one of the big factors of his victory. Through Thurman’s defeat, Pacquiao then became the oldest welterweight champion so far in boxing history.
While Thurman earlier had a lot of words for Pacquiao, and on how he would be victorious, he was quite gracious in defeat. He did, however, state that he would love the opportunity to go against Pacquiao in a rematch.
Thurman said, “I want to thank the fans. I want to thank everybody for coming out. This was a beautiful night of boxing… Manny Pacquiao is a great, truly great champion.
“I wish I had a little bit more output to go toe-to-toe. I felt like he was getting a little bit tired, but he did have experience in the right.
“My conditioning, my output was just behind Manny Pacquiao.”
After his victory against Thurman, Pacquiao now has a record of 62 wins from a total of 71 fights. On the other hand, this loss is the first for Thurman’s almost 30 match professional career.
