Making weight for a boxer isn’t easy. For Keith Thurman, Friday’s weigh-in before Saturday night’s fight against Josesito Lopez marked his first time trying to make weight in 22 months over his absence from boxing due to injuries.
Well, Thurman needed “One Time” to hit his number, coming in at 146.5 pounds during the weigh-in at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
That’s a far cry to the 183 pounds that Thurman had ballooned to just seven months ago, as he revealed to the press earlier this week.
“183 — that’s a number we don’t like to see,” Thurman said.
Being that it was the first time that Thurman had to make weight in nearly two years, Sporting News thought it would be cool to document his weigh-in day in preparation to his highly-anticipated return to the ring. The WBA welterweight champion graciously went along with the idea, granting SN access. Here’s a log of how his day went.
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6:30 a.m.: Woke up in his hotel room, which is just over a mile from Barclays Center, and weighed himself, coming in at 146.2 pounds.
9:30 a.m.: Keith Thurman greets Sporting News, wearing a track suit in the hotel lobby. He walks over to the hotel’s quaint café and orders an eight-ounce fresh grapefruit juice, leaving the clerk a tip. “This is breakfast,” Thurman says, taking a few sips, while downing a few multivitamins with it, “to feel my best.”
Thurman is joined by his physical therapist and movement coach, Eric Wilson, and a couple of friends from back home in Clearwater, Florida, Mike Kane and overseas basketball player Aldor Kola. Thurman and Kola train a bit together in Clearwater and minutes into their riveting basketball conversation, “One Time” is alleging that Kola’s claim to fame is giving Stephon Marbury the business one game.
9:42 a.m.: As the hotel elevator doors open up, Thurman is greeted by none other than Josesito Lopez, his opponent Saturday night. What could have been awkward silence is turned into light laughter in a split-second, when Thurman says, “I never would’ve thought we’d bump into each other in the hotel, but I knew it would happen sooner or later.” He added, “We have one more faceoff before the fight,” referring to the traditional staredown following Friday’s weigh-in. Lopez greets Sporting News, before exiting at his floor, while Thurman and company keep going up.
9:44 a.m.: Thurman plops his plastic cup of grapefruit juice down on the table in his hotel room and it still has a couple of ounces left in it. He’s not going to finish it and that’s the only thing he’ll consume until after the weigh-in. (More on that later).
9:47 a.m.: Wilson begins massaging Thurman’s shoulders, working his muscles.
10:09 a.m.: After a few minutes of Thurman talking, it becomes extremely clear that the WBA welterweight champ takes his juices seriously. While Wilson continues to work on Thurman’s muscles, the champ says he adds protein mix to a smoothie and counts the beverage as one of his meals during training camp. He also reveals that he has been having a green juice recommended by his dad to start his day each morning for the past two weeks. The green juice’s contents? Kale, cucumber, celery, one green apple, one lemon, half of a Habanero pepper and Spirulina. “My dad puts them in mason jars and throws them in the refrigerator, but because of the Habanero pepper in there, it’s very hot and spicy and after you drink this drink, you’ve got to down with almost equal amount of water,” he said. “But this gets into your system — you take it about two hours before your workout — and that heat is very thermogenic. I was only taking this for breakfast. The Habanero is going to push more sweat out of you and toxins.”
Keith Thurman Sr. later added: “Being a competitive, top-notch athlete like he is, this is the type of thing you want to put in your body on a daily basis. You’re feeding yourself pure oxygen, live blood from plants.”
Thurman added: “I just call it papa’s drink.”
Friday marks the first day over the past two weeks that Thurman hasn’t had the drink and he told SN that he could feel the difference.
10:15 a.m.: Wilson begins running a deep-tissue massager on Thurman’s back and shoulder blades. “I got cottonmouth,” Thurman says, “from the drying out.”
10:30 a.m.: While Wilson continues to work a seated Thurman’s muscles and stretch him out, the boxing star reveals that his wife has him fasting on meat Mondays and Tuesdays as well. “I respect that and I don’t mind,” he said. “It only took a few weeks to get used to it. But I told her that in preparation for this fight, I said, ‘My diet is strict, I’m following this regimen, but I need to eat meat on Mondays and Tuesdays [during training camp] and can’t fast until after the fight’ and she said, ‘OK.’”
Overall, Thurman reveals that he’s a creature of habit when it comes to eating during camp.
“I like having something like a go-to thing like the smoothies for breakfast, a container for lunch with curry chicken taking up half the space, ¼ black beans and the other ¼ chickpeas, and a fish and broccoli for dinner or some kind of vegetable soup,” Thurman said. “Dinner is the most revolving and changing. But I like to have one to two things that I could just go to, go to, go to and it really helps me not think what are we going to do next.“
He adds that he’s not afraid to eat out during camp, either: “I eat out a lot. People be like, ‘Champ, do you got a chef?’ I say, ‘Yeah, at every restaurant I go to.’”
10:40 a.m.: Thurman takes a look at the custom ring attire made for him, equipped with his “One Time” moniker.
11:05 a.m.: Thurman makes his way to the lobby, where he greets his dad, other family members and more friends from Clearwater. One of his friends challenges him to a game of chess on the overblown chess board sprawled out on a table sitting in the lobby. Thurman plops down and vows that he’s going to record a knockout. After his friend captures some of his pieces, Thurman says, “You don’t need all your pieces to win this game. I beat Danny Garcia with bone spurs.”
11:20 a.m.: Thurman abandons the chess game for a quick few minutes, heads up the hotel’s stairs, disrobes to his briefs in the bathroom and registers one last weight check before the official weigh-in. He emerges from the bathroom fully-clothed and tells SN that he weighed in at 146.4 pounds.
11:30 a.m.: Thurman is now getting ready to head to Barclays Center to handle some obligations (photo shoots, green screen recordings) for FOX.
1:45 p.m.: “One Time” makes his way to the Barclays Center stage with the WBA strap in tow.
1:46 p.m.: Thurman officially weighs in at 146.5 pounds.
1:47 p.m.: Thurman and Lopez have an intense faceoff.
1:50 p.m.: Thurman quickly gets dressed. A car, with a banana and Pedialyte is waiting for him to replenish him a bit. Thurman says he always has the one-two combination immediately following a weigh-in.
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2:15 p.m.: Here comes the fun part — adding the weight lost back onto his 5-7.5 frame. Thurman and his camp are en route to an Italian restaurant. (SN doesn’t tag along here). Following lunch, Thurman has some rest and downtime before he, his family and friends head out to dinner. “I have a tradition with my team, family and friends — we call it the last supper,” Thurman said. “Dinner after the weigh-ins is the last dinner that I’m gonna have with my family and friends before I go into battle. I fought here in New York quite a few times. We did Italian one night. Last time, we went to a Thai restaurant and this time we’re going to go to an Indian restaurant because 1) I haven’t had a lot of Indian food during this training camp and 2) I miss my wife very much, so Indian food always reminds me of my wife. She’s the one who made me fall in love with Indian food.” Thurman tells SN that he strives to gain an average of seven to 10 pounds from the time period between post-weigh-in and the start of the fight.
