Keith Thurman's run as the WBC welterweight champion appears to be over without a single title defense to his name.
According to WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman, Thurman, who is also the WBA welterweight champion, has vacated the WBC title. Instead, the WBC champion will be decided when Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter fight each other. Garcia and Porter, both mandatory challengers for the WBC title, were likely to be ordered by Sulaiman to fight for the interim title, but now will fight for the vacant WBC title.
Thurman has not defended the title since unifying the two welterweight titles with a split decision victory over Garcia back in March 2017. Thurman then had elbow surgery which would keep him out of action for the remainder of 2017. Thurman was planning on fighting on May 19 at the Barclays Center, but Thurman suffered another injury that would postpone his return. Once Thurman is fully healthy, he will be able to fight for the title in his first fight.
Although Thurman had been scheduled to return to action in May, he did not have an opponent for his return bout. Since last year, Thurman had been adamant about not fighting Shawn Porter in early 2018, telling Fightful that he would not fight Porter in May. Former WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas also told Fightful that he was in negotiations to fight Thurman, but that Thurman elected to not fight Thurman.
Porter won the right to be Thurman's mandatory challenger when he defeated Andre Berto in a title eliminator last April. Since losing to Thurman, Garcia has only fought once, defeated Brandon Rios in another WBC title eliminator.
