By Victor Salazar

Tampa, Florida - Keith Thurman improved his record to 26-0 with 22 KO’s when he defeated Luis Collazo by 8th round TKO last night in the USF Sun Dome. But the victor wasn’t without a scare. In the 5th round, Collazo landed a big left hand to the body that had hurt Thurman and had him reeling to end the 5th round. Thurman says he got hit with a perfect shot.

“That was a beautiful left hook that he (Collazo) threw,” Thurman told krikya360.com. “It was a mixed shot, slight left hook, slight left uppercut. I was extended and couldn’t get my arm back to block the shot. It was a perfect shot.”

Thurman says the majority of his wind was gone and had even thought about taking a knee.

“I say 95 percent of my wind was gone but with the 5 percent that I had left, it went to my brain I thought about taking a knee,” stated Thurman. “But as soon as I thought about taking a knee, something in my voice said not to take knee, ‘you’re stronger than that boy, keep fighting.’ So I did. Then he hit me with a second body shot. I know a lot of people saw the 1st one but I don’t know if you saw the second one. It hurt again. Mike Tyson called this sport the pain game. Sometimes you got to give a little and take a little. I took a little that round and I gave a lot more. It was the best body shot I ever took in my life.

Thurman knew there wasn’t much time left in the round but still wanted to be more defensive, even doing something he doesn’t normally do, hold

“I knew the round and most of it had gone by. I knew there was enough time to get hurt more and get hurt bad. But I endured and got by. I tried holding a bit. Holding is not something I do. When it’s necessary it’s necessary. We survived the round and recovered. We used a portion of that next round to fully recover and we got the TKO victory.”