By Dan Ambrose: The Top Rank promoted WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford (28-0, 20 KOs) and WBC light welterweight champion Viktor Postol (28-0, 12 KOs) have reportedly agreed to terms for a July 23 fight on HBO pay-per-view at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The contracts are expected to be signed and given back to Top Rank shortly. The press conference is already scheduled for May 10 to announce the Crawford-Postol fight, along with the undercard.
The fight is on PPV due to HBO not having enough dates to put the fight on regular HBO because of budget cuts. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum could have waited until HBO had a free date, but it might have taken longer for the fight to be put on.
This is obviously a gamble on the 94-year-old Arum’s part because boxing fans might not be too eager to pay to see Crawford and Postol fight, especially given last year’s high priced disappointment between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and the Top Rank promoted Manny Pacquiao.
Instead of dropping the price for that fight to accommodate the millions that were interested in the fight, they increased the price to $100 for PPV. Those same fans might not like the idea of being asked to pay to see Postol and Crawford fight each other.
One positive for the card is that WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez (34-0, 24 KOs) is supposed to be on the undercard. This is a good deal because Ramirez may soon eclipse the popularity of Crawford and Postol and find himself headlining his own cards.
If I were to guess, I think Ramirez is going to be A LOT more popular than Crawford and Postol can ever hope to be. Ramirez seems like he’s got the goods to be a very good fighter for a long, long time. He could wind up better than Saul “Canelo” Alvarez if Arum can find the big enough names to help increase his popularity.
“The terms have been agreed to, the contracts are out and we’re (finalizing) the final details before they sign,” Arum said in a phone interview. “It’s a terrific fight,” said Arum to RingTV.com.
Crawford, 28, is coming off of a 5th round knockout win over fringe contender Hank Lundy on February 27. This was another less than impressive opponent for Crawford, who has been facing weaker and weaker opposition ever since his win over Yuriorkis Gamboa two years ago. It was nice that Arum finally got him a good opponent in Postol for his next fight, but one has the feelings that Arum will revert back to form after this fight and continue putting Crawford in with lesser fighters.
It’s too bad Manny Pacquiao retired without fighting Crawford because that would have been a good fight if it could have been made. Crawford is friends with Tim Bradley, so that’s an in house fight that can’t be made.
Crawford will probably need to move up in weight to welterweight if he wants to increase his popularity. If he stays at 140, he could find himself fighting Postol four or five times if Arum has no one to put him in with. Arum does a lot of rematches with his Top Rank fighters, so a rematch or three between Crawford and Postol would seem to be a given at this point.
Postol recently won the vacant WBC light welterweight title last October with a 10th round knockout win over Lucas Matthysse.