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Pacquiao beats Thurman for WBA Super World Welterweight Championship belt | HIGHLIGHTS | PBC ON FOX

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Manny Pacquiao just turned back the clock in Las Vegas.

On July 20, 2019, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, 40-year-old Manny Pacquiao did something nobody in the sport’s history had ever done — he walked out of the ring a welterweight world champion at an age when most fighters are working the broadcast booth. Facing previously unbeaten Keith “One Time” Thurman on the PBC on FOX pay-per-view card, Pacquiao dropped his younger opponent early, weathered a hard middle-round push, and closed the show with a body shot that left Thurman gasping. The judges needed all twelve rounds to sort it out, and even then they didn’t agree.

• Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KOs) dropped Thurman (29-1, 22 KOs) late in round one with a left hook to the body followed by a sharp right hand.
• Thurman mounted a middle-round rally with power shots before Pacquiao answered in the 10th with a left hook to the ribs that forced Thurman to spit out his mouthpiece just to breathe.
• The split decision went 115-112 and 115-112 for Pacquiao, with one judge scoring it 114-113 for Thurman, making Pacquiao the oldest welterweight world champion in boxing history.

A First-Round Statement

Pacquiao didn’t wait to establish the terms of the fight. Barely a round into a bout many expected Thurman’s youth and power to control, Pacquiao dug a left hook into the body and followed it with a straight right hand that put Thurman on the canvas. It was the kind of opening that instantly reframed the narrative around a 40-year-old challenger — Pacquiao spent the early rounds controlling range and output, bloodying Thurman’s nose and banking rounds while Thurman tried to find his footing.

Thurman’s Rally and the Body Shot That Changed Everything

Thurman, undefeated heading into the night, didn’t fold. He found his rhythm in the middle rounds, landing the kind of power shots that had carried him to a 29-0 record, and for a stretch it looked like the fight could swing his way on activity alone. But Pacquiao had an answer waiting. In the 10th round, he landed a left hook to the ribs that visibly hurt Thurman, sending him circling around the ring just to survive the moment.

Thurman later admitted the body shot in the 10th forced him to spit out his mouthpiece just to breathe.

That single punch reset the fight’s momentum right when Thurman appeared to be building a case. Pacquiao didn’t need a knockout to make his point — he just needed Thurman to remember, in real time, exactly who he was in the ring with.

The Scorecards and the History Books

When the final bell sounded, the fight went to the judges as a genuine toss-up. Two scored it 115-112 for Pacquiao, while the third had it 114-113 for Thurman — a split decision that reflected just how competitive the middle rounds had been despite Pacquiao’s knockdown and his 10th-round body shot. The verdict handed Pacquiao the WBA (Super) Welterweight Championship and, at 40 years old, made him the oldest welterweight world champion the sport has ever recorded. It’s the kind of career-topping moment that invites the same reaction fans have to any veteran silencing the doubters, the sort covered in pieces like Top 10 Celebrity Comebacks: Stars Silencing Disrespectful Interviewers — except Pacquiao’s answer came with his fists, not a microphone.

Beating an unbeaten 29-0 fighter a decade younger, on FOX’s PBC platform no less, instantly became one of the trending storylines in sports that weekend, and for good reason — Pacquiao entered as a former champion trying to prove he still belonged at the top of a stacked 147-pound division, and he left with the hardware to back it up.

Thurman’s unbeaten record is gone, and so is his claim on the WBA strap, but the loss doesn’t erase what he built to get there — a 29-fight run that included wins over the division’s best before Pacquiao caught him on the wrong night. For Pacquiao, the number that matters now is 40 — his age, and the one that makes his 62nd career win the most improbable of them all.