WBO light welterweight champion Terence “Bud” Crawford (28-0, 20 KOs) will be giving away three inches in height and reach to the 5’11” WBC 140lb champion Victor Postol (28-0, 12 KOs) this Saturday night in their fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
There are some boxing fans and writers who believe that the taller 32-year-old Postol will be able to do to Crawford the same thing he’s done his entire career by keeping the fight on the outside. Crawford doesn’t agree with those people. He thinks he’s going to be able to beat Postol with his own jab despite not having the same reach as him.
“I believe I’m going to be victorious,” said Crawford to IFL TV. “He can have the height, the reach, the jab, but that’s still not going to win him the fight,” said Crawford about Postol. “It doesn’t make no difference. I got a jab, I’m fast, and I got a little height on me. I might not be as tall as him, but at the same time, I know how to fight. I’m not a betting man. At the same time, I believe in my skills and my abilities. I’m going to get the job done,” said Crawford.
Crawford might need more than a jab against Postol for him to win the fight, because if he stays on the outside and tries to control the fight with his jab, he may come up short. In a battle of jabs, Postol wins this fight every time. He’s like a shorter version of heavyweight Wladimir Klitschko, and that’s not good for Crawford. If you’ve seen Wladimir fight, you’ll know that he always gets the better of his opponents with his jab.
Crawford has a lot of pressure on him in this fight, because he’s got to win and look good for him to have a chance at facing Manny Pacquiao on November 5 on HBO PPV. Their promoter Bob Arum wants nothing more than to match them both together, because he seems to think the boxing public wants to see this fight. I think Arum is dead wrong. It’s not a fight that the boxing public wants to see. The fans would rather see Pacquiao fight someone like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Keith Thurman than fighting Crawford. However, it would help Arum’s Top Rank company if he matches Crawford against Pacquiao because it would make a bigger name for Crawford in his future fights.
Crawford needs to pick up a scalp from a famous fighter like Pacquiao, even though he’s not nearly the fighter he was seven years ago. It doesn’t matter that a prime Pacquiao would likely KO Crawford with ease. It’s the same thing with Pacquiao getting popular by beating an over-the-hill and weight drained Oscar De La Hoya. I don’t think for a second that Pacquiao would have beaten a prime De La Hoya when he was fighting at lightweight earlier in his career. That version of De La Hoya beats Pacquiao every day, 365 days a year.
Pacquiao still got famous after he beat an old De La Hoya. Arum obviously is counting on Crawford becoming more famous after he fights Pacquiao. I’m just not so sure that Pacquiao is going to agree to be the stepping stone for Crawford, especially if it means that the fight won’t bring in as many PPV buys than a fight against another fighter outside of Arum’s Top Rank stable.
“There is no pressure on me being looked at as boxing’s next superstar,” said Crawford. “If I’m going to solidify my position as the new face of boxing it starts by unifying the 140 pound division. I’ve been fighting people taller than me and larger than me all my life. I’ve been short for 28 years and I haven’t been stopped yet. Postol is nothing to me. He’s just another guy that I’m fighting. I am confident that I am going to destroy Postol,” said Crawford.
Crawford is not going to be able to become the new superstar in boxing fighting in the 140lb division. I don’t care how much he and his promoter Arum might think that to be the case, but I don’t see it happening. The only way Crawford becomes the new superstar in boxing and surpasses the likes of Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, is if he moves up to welterweight and beats Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, Errol Spence, Shawn Porter and Kell Brook. I don’t see that ever happening in this lifetime. Crawford doesn’t have the frame to beat those guys. Those are strong fighters that rehydrate up in weight. Crawford has the build of a light welterweight, and I don’t think he’s got the body to put on muscle weight.
For Crawford to become a serious superstar, he’s got to move out of the light welterweight division and look to beat the likes of Spence, Thurman, Postol and Brook. Unfortunately for Crawford and Top Rank, I don’t see him ever beating those guys. If he chooses to face them, I see it ending badly for Crawford. There’s no shame in losing to guys like Spence, Thurman, Postol and Brook. It just means that Crawford‘s place is at 140 and not at 147. We’re not seeing Golovkin fight at 168 or 175. I think Golovkin would get beaten in those weight classes because the fighters are too big and strong for him up there. I see Crawford as being in the same position as Gennady is with him being stuck in a weight division and not having the size to go past it.
Saturday’s fight between Crawford and Postol is more of a toss-up in my view than a fight where you can positively pick one of the two guys out. I don’t see either of these guys as being above the other right now. We’re going to have to find out on Saturday night which of them is the better fighter.
Arum might want to look to match Crawford and Postol in a rematch after this because it might be the best chance he can get at an interesting fight for them. If Pacquiao turns down the winner of the Crawford vs. Postol fight, then a rematch between them might be the only option.
