By Rick Reeno

Keith Thurman (23-0, 21KOs) is very familiar with tough Diego Chaves (23-2, 19KOs) of Argentina. They traded punches last July for the interim-WBA welterweight title. Chaves was able to rattle Thurman early, but "One Time" grew stronger as the fight played out, dropping Chaves twice for a tenth round knockout.

On Saturday night, Thurman is facing undefeated Olympian Leonard Bundu at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. A few blocks away at the Cosmopolitan Hotel & Casino, Chaves will return to the ring against former two division champion Timothy Bradley.

"Chaves is deadly early on. We've seen Timothy go down, but we haven't see him stay down. It's an interesting matchup," Thurman said.

Chaves has been criticized as being a dirty fighter. In his last outing against Brandon Rios, he was disqualified in the ninth round after numerous warnings from the referee.

Thurman confirms that Chaves is indeed no stranger to dirty tactic and tried quite a few them when they met in the ring.

"Yes [he is dirty], I just didn't complain about it. I just took care of business and took care of that problem. If you look back at the tape, somewhere around the fourth, fifth or sixth round - in the third round he already busted my nose - around the fourth or fifth, he takes his hand and goes for my nose to pull it like this and because my nose was busted already it was extremely painful," Thurman said.

"It occurred one more time, where he tried it but he missed my nose and almost got an eye gouge but he didn't eye gouge me, it kind of just brushed against my eyebrow. I was able to get my head out of there quick enough."