By Victor Salazar

Tampa, Florida- Luis Collazo suffered highs and lows and his fight with Keith Thurman. In The 5th round of their fight Collazo hurt Thurman to the body and was very close to scoring a knockdown. Then in the 7th he suffered a cut that caused his vision to be affected which eventually led to the fight being stopped. But Collazo wasn’t a sore loser as he gave Thurman his credit.

“I can’t take nothing away from him, he stood up. He’s a champion,” Collazo told BoxingScene.com. “He’s a good fighter, he still ways to go but he’s in the right direction climbing up the ladder.”

Collazo and his corner made the decision to stop the fight because Collazo couldn’t see because of the blood coming into his eyes from the cut. But Collazo wants to live in to fight another day.

“I’m a great fighter inside and I felt that was his weakness and going through the fight the longer it went the closer I was getting,” stated Collazo. “Then the cut came and I couldn’t see. I got to be safer than sorry right now. I’m not a quitter. I wanted to keep going but I also want to keep fighting and I don’t want to take unnecessary shots in a situation like that, so me and my corner decided to stop the fight”

The body shot in the 5th had Thurman hurt and Collazo feels had he had more time in the round, maybe we’re talking about a different fight.

“Once I caught him with the body shot, he got on his bike and I had a feeling he’d do that the whole fight. He probably had like 10 seconds left in the round. If I probably had 30 more seconds, I would have at least got an 8 count because I believe he would have taken a knee.”