Keith Thurman-Mario Barrios Back on Feb 5th

Easily one of the first questions that have constantly reappeared during this pandemic has been when has former welterweight champion Keith Thurman was going to get back into the ring.

We at least know the date of this contest as Thurman posted on his social media the announcement that the fight will be a Fox Sports pay-per-view on February 5th.

So were at? The assumption as to why this is still a location to be determined is they haven’t settled on one yet due to surging cases of the COVID variant across the globe. Still, the sites being put out there so far have been Las Vegas, San Antonio, and Tampa as fight destinations. Thurman last had a hometown fight back when the “PBC was on ESPN” when he defeated Luis Collazo in July 2015.

Feb 5th I’m back! It’s grind time! Stacked card feb. 5th with be a great night on boxing for all fight fans it’s showtime 2022! pic.twitter.com/Y6OdNQJSgz

— Keith Thurman Jr. (@keithfthurmanjr) December 19, 2021

Barrios comes into this contest against Thurman after making a household name for himself in the boxing world against Gervonta “Tank” Davis in a game-losing effort. This, for Barrios, will be his first fight at the new weight of 147 after the campaign the last few years at 140.

On that announcement on the tweet for Thurman mentioned the return of Leo Santa Cruz back down at featherweight against  Keenan Carbajal. The statement is of note as it was reported today from Jake Donovan at Boxingscene that Santa Cruz will stay at 126 and face the winner of the mandatory challenge between Michael Conlan and Leigh Wood.

“We can confirm that Leo will enter a voluntary title defense and has expressed his interest and commitment to facing the winner of (Michael) Conlan and (Leigh) Wood,” WBA President Gilberto Mendoza said to Boxingscene.

We’ll see what shapes out the rest of this card and where it is, but we get the return of “One Time” Thurman against Barrios in 2022 and a defending champion once again in Santa Cruz.