On Shawn Porter showing more to his game
"It’s fight specific. We were able to show different things to get Keith, because we knew we were gonna have to do different things to get Keith. He showed the ability to jab. He showed ability to navigate the ring, move laterally. Move in and out, go to the body, fight inside. He showed a lot of things and I was very proud of him."
On whether or not Shawn was hurt
"Nah, there wasn’t a point that I really felt Shawn was hurt, but there was definitely a point where Keith caught him with something that rocked him a little bit. He recovered well. I thought there were some points we had Keith hurt. It wasn’t at that point — he wasn’t hurt bad enough to just go after him like that. We continued to play it strategic, because he can throw punches you don’t see, coming from different angles and stuff like that. But I thought Shawn fought him very, very well. Very well."
On Fight of the Year talk
"It’s definitely the Fight of the Year. I haven’t seen a better fight, and I was sitting ringside. ... It was right up there with a Tommy Hearns-Sugar Ray Leonard type fight. There was quite a few rounds that those guys fought their hearts out. Even in those situation, I felt Shawn was in control. Keith was fighting back, and Shawn was doing what I wanted him to do, and he came back to the corner and I felt good about what he did that round."
On Shawn’s continued improvement
"Like I said, it’s fight-specific. Depending upon who we fought to this point, there weren’t a lot of things we were gonna do with those people, that everybody could see all the things that we could do. Today, he did show a lot of those things. It was a close fight, but I felt he should’ve gotten that decision. I felt he was the aggressor. I felt he was in control of Keith more than Keith was in control of him. Yeah, Keith landed some big shots here and there, no doubt, but I didn’t really feel that there was every any points that Keith was controlling Shawn, and had Shawn at a deficit where Shawn couldn’t fight back. Whereas the opposite was going on with Shawn, he was in control of Keith, especially when he fought him on the inside, and from the outside, landing his jab very well."
On a rematch
"It’s too early to tell, but, come on, man. Fight of the Year, let’s do the rematch. Let’s do the rematch."
On anything surprising about Thurman
"He definitely showed that he wasn’t gonna back down, he was gonna fight the whole way. But again, it was definitely more control on Shawn’s behalf, and I don’t think he got credit for the body work that he did. He was in control of Keith more than Keith was in control of him. I didn’t feel like there were points where Keith was in control. He’d land a big shot here and there, but he wasn’t in control, controlling the pace, controlling the aggression, the punches that were thrown. I didn’t feel that."
On Thurman’s performance
"Keith answered the questions. He did everything he was supposed to do. I don’t have no problem with him moving. He moved, Shawn was right there with him. In those situations, OK, let’s talk about how aggressive Shawn was, how he was in control on the inside. Then let’s talk about you moving the way you moved, that can’t really make you look that good. The guy’s being aggressive, the guy’s controlling."