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Boxer Shawn Porter is quietly, intensely ready for the biggest fight of his career

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Boxer and former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter spars with his trainer Kenny Porter during a media workout at his gym, the Porter Hy-Performence Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 8, 2016.
Mona Shield-Payne
Jason Scavone

Justin Bieber walked up the aisles of MGM Grand Garden Arena last June trying to get to his ringside seats. Security, oblivious to Bieber’s blasé attitude and stupid Robert Mitchum-Night of the Hunter hat, wouldn’t let him until someone in his entourage played the don’t-you-know-who-this-is card. Finally, he was allowed to set up shop next to Floyd Mayweather.

Since Mayweather started making the Grand Garden his home office, the intimate arena had eclipsed any worldwide stage for boxing save Madison Square Garden. On this particular night, Shawn Porter, then a 27-year-old former welterweight champion, was in the ring against Adrien Broner, a fighter who, despite proclaiming himself Mayweather’s “little brother,” was just months away from firing up a contrived beef with big bro as a way to juice his own career.

Boxer and former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter relaxes during a media workout at his gym, the Porter Hy-Performence Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 8, 2016.

Boxer and former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter relaxes during a media workout at his gym, the Porter Hy-Performence Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 8, 2016.

Normally a 140-pound fighter, Broner used his star power to force Porter to come down to 145 instead of fighting at his natural 147 pounds. It wasn’t enough. Live on NBC for all the world to see, Porter, a native of Akron, Ohio, who now claims Las Vegas as his home, smothered and pummeled Broner for the better part of 12 rounds.

It was, until this week, Porter’s biggest fight, bigger even than when he won the IBF title in 2013, one of four straps in boxing’s fractured, convoluted sanctioning system. But now it’s prelude, as Porter prepares to take on the unbeaten and brick-fisted WBA champion Keith Thurman June 25 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center at 6 p.m. on CBS. It’s the first prime-time fight on the network since Muhammad Ali fought Leon Spinks in 1978. They might mention that once or twice during the broadcast.

There are other fights that command attention in 2016. Tyson Fury has a rematch with heavyweight automaton Wladimir Klitschko in July. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, now boxing’s biggest star following Mayweather’s and Manny Pacquiao’s retirements, could fight Kazakhstani superbeast Gennady Golovkin before the year is out. But Porter-Thurman marks the biggest pairing of evenly matched young stars in boxing’s premier welterweight division.

Fans still dream about Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Durán, Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns beating each other up and down the 147-, 154- and 160-pound divisions. That was 30 years ago. Since then, boxing has seen more easy paydays for middling performances than Nic Cage’s agent. Everyone is dying for consistent, real action, and Porter-Thurman might be the tip of the spear in a stocked division that could actually deliver on its promise.

*****

“I don’t speak to hear myself talk. I believe the intelligence I’m giving to you is worth something, it’s expensive,” Porter’s father and trainer, Kenny, admonishes his son, who’s waiting to work on his defense with a sparring partner. It’s the start of a sermon that will go on for minutes. Shawn nods in deference and impatience to the sage in track pants.

Watching a professional athlete work out is, for anyone resembling a normal human being, a humiliating proposition. It makes you acutely aware of every night you blew off the gym to hammer Netflix on the couch. Fighters have to be in better shape than most pro athletes, and Porter’s workouts are aggressive even by those standards.

Boxer and former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter spars with his trainer Kenny Porter during a media workout at his gym, the Porter Hy-Performence Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 8, 2016.

Boxer and former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter spars with his trainer Kenny Porter during a media workout at his gym, the Porter Hy-Performence Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 8, 2016.

He starts his training days with a morning routine at UNLV—the Rebels’ volunteer assistant track coach Larry Wade is part of Porter’s team—before an afternoon workout at the Porter Hy-Performance gym on Sahara and Paradise.

A few minutes into the sparring session, Kenny sees something he doesn’t like. He tells Shawn to catch left hooks and roll with them so he can counterpunch, instead of backing away and taking himself out of the game. Wordlessly, Shawn begins to glide around his foe, finding the edge of the harmonious sphere where he can twist and dive away, still finding a platform to return fire.

Sealed into a glass chamber that simulates altitude training conditions, he runs through continuous 45-second cycles of heavy-bag jabs, running in place, power shots, jumping jacks and push-ups. Then he does it all over again. There’s no air conditioning in the gym, just flimsy shades over the windows. It’s the kind of choking, early-June heat that makes you want to lie very still on the floor until, oh, November.

Then he sprints on an elliptical and completes a circuit involving battle ropes, high stepping over cones and long-jumping across a course marked into the floor. It’s six angry Russians away from being the Ivan Drago montage in Rocky IV. Kenny asks if Shawn’s legs feel okay and he gives a curt nod. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. It’s not a given he’d tell his father the truth if they did.

Boxer Shawn Porter

The soundtrack is all classic soul. The Whispers. The Dazz Band. Stevie Wonder. “Jab, jab, jab. I need more speed,” Kenny pounds out his commands. Porter connects with the rhythm, hands materializing in front of his face to catch the shots. He’s hitting cruising speed.

It would be easy to mistake Kenny for the fighter. He’s 46, only 18 years Shawn’s senior, but he looks like he’s in his early 30s. When he talks to Shawn in the ring, it’s all steel and confrontation.

Shawn Porter isn’t his father. He’s phlegmatic. At the press conference before the Broner fight, Broner talked so much sh*t about Porter’s relationship with his dad that even Mayweather told him to cool it—the Emperor telling Darth Vader to knock it off already with all the Force choking. Porter stared straight ahead the whole time, bored as a tollbooth worker. After the fight was over, Shawn thanked Broner; Kenny shoved him.

That makes Shawn Porter an outlier in boxing. Even fighters who seem like the down-to-earth ones among a notoriously squirrely bunch are rarely so gracious. Spirituality plays its part. Porter regularly goes to Remnant Ministries church, where former UNLV and NFL great Randall Cunningham is the pastor.

*****

Come June 25, either Porter or Thurman is going to be the new king of the division Mayweather ruled for so long. Thurman’s nickname, “One Time,” is a nod to his certified knockout power. He has dropped 22 of 26 foes. But for someone on the cusp of ascending the throne, Porter is so sanguine it hurts.

“I don’t know if at this point I’m looking at this fight like most people are,” he said. “There’s actually someone who repeats to me on a daily basis how pivotal this fight is.” This seems both crazy and classic. It’s like those guys who rode chariots behind Roman generals whispering memento mori, reminders of mortality.

“There have been plenty of opportunities for me to reflect on this fight and see myself getting the belt and actually smile. Someone will see me like, ‘Why are you smiling?’ And I’m like, ‘Man, I’m just thinking.’ Those are the kinds of moments you want to make real.”

Twelve rounds from now, we’ll find out.

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