A visibly battered Keith Thurman appeared at the post-fight press conference following his stoppage loss to Sebastian Fundora to discuss the fight and express his displeasure with how it was ended by the referee. Thurman would say he believes the fight was just starting to take off when the referee intervened and he believes he could’ve made something special happen had he just been afforded a little more time.
“Whoever the f-ck that referee was, don’t hire him for main even sh-t ever again, man.
Real talk. Do you remember Erik Morales vs Marcos Maidana? Do you remember how many times people fought with broken orbital bones? [Mine’s] not even broken, man. Never got dropped in the whole fight. I’m getting caught on the backend of punches. The referee told me in the locker room ‘show me something, move your feet, duck your head — I won’t stop the fight.’
“I’m using my legs, I’m getting caught on the backend, I wasn’t buckled, he just jumped in like a white rabbit, man. So them little hoppy referees, they’re not made for main event boxing. The fight was getting fun! The people were standing on their feet! We was just getting into the grind and he was getting really comfortable swinging wide, swinging big and swinging wide. Because he’s big, because he’s young, because he trained hard he put that press ‘cause he’s a volume puncher. He put that press and the referee reacted to that.
“As an OG, four more minutes, it would’ve been a lot of fun. I promise you. Four more minutes and he could have made a mistake right in front me, man. I was waiting for it. I knew it was going to be one of these tough fights against a young champion but I had that long-term version but the ref didn’t let me get there. So it was unfortunate.”
Thurman would go on to say that he intends to fight again and has no thought of retiring at the moment.
