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Keith Thurman’s long, thoughtful plan continues against Shawn Porter

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It didn’t take a high school education for a teenage Keith Thurman to deduce where he wanted to be in life.

So in his freshman year he began a practice of leaving his backpack and textbooks at home, in favor of carrying just one favored book to class for reading pleasure.

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“I didn’t pay attention to grades, I wasn’t worried about that because I knew I was dropping out,” Thurman said, doing so before the winter break of his sophomore year.

“I thought to myself, ‘You can always go back to college. You can’t always try to be champion of the world.’”

Thurman (26-0, 22 knockouts) has accomplished that mission as World Boxing Assn. welterweight champion, and when he meets former champion Shawn Porter on Saturday at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., in the main event of CBS’ first prime-time boxing card since Muhammad Ali-Leon Spinks in February 1978, he’ll seek to strengthen his standing in boxing’s most loaded division.

“The stage has been my set and now it’s my job to solidify my place,” Thurman, 27, said. “A KO victory puts a star or two on top of it, but nothing’s solidified now, with Kell Brook and Danny Garcia as undefeated champions. We’re going to have to fight it out.”

Promoter Lou DiBella said at a Thursday news conference that he’s already initiated talks to arrange a unification series.

Porter (26-1-1, 16 KOs) is 3-1 in fights against current or former world champions in his past five bouts, including a June 2015 decision over Adrien Broner.

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And Porter’s devotion to fitness is something to watch, considering Thurman needed six weeks off after suffering whiplash-related injuries from a winter car accident in his hometown of Clearwater, Fla., that postponed their planned March 12 bout.

Thurman said an MRI showed “micro-tears” along his spine and neck from the impact of an air bag that smacked him in the head in a hydroplane-caused collision.

“Shawn’s relentless,” Thurman said. “We’ve never seen a fighter put Shawn Porter on his back foot. He’s been hit and backs up a little bit, but he always resets and gets right back to moving forward.”

Thurman’s reply will come in his own conditioning and boxing skill – his powerful right hand has led to his nickname as “One Time” and he recently unleashed one such punch so mighty that it knocked a heavy bag off the ceiling.

“It was a loose screw, but I still knocked it down,” Thurman said. “It was loose the day before and nobody in the gym knocked it down. Beautiful, powerful right hand. The record speaks for itself. Everyone but one of my opponents has been knocked down.

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“I have power, but focus on the overall athletic event – the technique you have to execute before acquiring the knockout. You have to play the game before you hit a home run, right?”

Thurman’s thoughtful analysis makes him one of the most interesting practitioners in the sweet science, and it stems from the time he’s invested reading and studying people for his own enrichment.

“I learned how to read in a way to not pressure myself,” he said. “I could get through a 300-page book in two months. When it’s done, it’s done and you feel accomplished. I don’t have to write a report. There’s nobody asking me questions, no tests. But I know it.”

Interest in Far East culture, samurais, world religions and gurus, such as India’s late Osho, took hold.

“Osho was a great speaker and spoke of how to answer a question,” Thurman said. “Bring the question in, absorb it, give yourself time, then present a thoughtful answer.

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“Sometimes, people would ask him a question, there’d be a moment of silence for like 15 seconds and then he’d start answering. There’s no real rush to answer the questions you face. To apply the best intellectual answer, you should clear your mind, stay calm, assess the question as well as you can to be comfortable, and then respond.”

The benefits of Thurman’s private study can be seen in his work of preparing for an opponent.

Thurman’s trainer, Dan Birmingham, said his fighter’s ability to improvise with “new moves, new ideas,” makes him the most innovative fighter he’s ever worked with.

“He knows his fans want to see blood, guts and knockouts and that’s what he creates,” Birmingham said.

“Keith’s an all-around better fighter [than Porter], a better puncher, more gifted in his attack. He’s going to set [Porter] up and get him out of there.”

Stephen Espinoza, Showtime’s executive vice president, said in the race to inherit the welterweight mantle left behind by Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s retirement, Thurman faces a “career-defining fight” and an opportunity to connect with a large collection of new fans.

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“He’s reserved, introspective and it takes awhile for you to peel back the layers, but the layers are very interesting,” Espinoza said.

Thurman confesses: “I’m an imperfect person. I’ve let anger, jealousy, all the emotions, get the best of me,” he said. “If I go into books, word by word, little by little, they help re-center and re-ground me and put me on the right path. Life is a journey. I’m very focused on the things I do and have learned not to be pressured.”

That back and forth is something Thurman has come to understand since he wore a silver Yin Yang ring as a child.“It just sort of spoke to me, it seemed like those who believed in it knew what they were talking about,” Thurman said. “As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized what it is: energy that manifests everything else in the universe.”

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