By Jim Dower: Unbeaten light welterweight champions Viktor Postol and Terence Crawford both made weight on Friday for their clash this Saturday night on HBO PPV from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Crawford came in at 140 pounds at the upper limit of the light welterweight division.
For his part, Postol weighed in slightly less at 139.5lbs. During the face off, Crawford attempted to get into the head of Postol by moving up in down and staring at Postol in a gleeful way. Postol started grinning and turned away.
A cocky Crawford said this after weighing in: “I’m ready to put on a show [Saturday] night. It’s going to be action all night. Two top fighters, two world champions, two undefeated fighters in the primes. I’m ready. Don’t blink. That’s all I have to say.”
Crawford isn’t that kind of a one-punch knockout artist. Crawford does have some recent knockouts, but those come against lightweight Dierry Jean, former featherweight Yuriorkis Gamboa and fringe contenders Hank Lundy and Thomas Dulorme. Crawford hasn’t proven himself capable of knocking guys out with one punch, and he’s not shown that he can stop the better fighters. Crawford never came close to knocking out Ricky Burns, Raymundo Beltran and Breidis Prescott. Crawford has decent punching power, but he’s not a huge puncher by any means.
Hopefully, Crawford doesn’t get things twisted in his head and start thinking that he’s a better puncher than he really is against Postol. Crawford needs to fight a smart fight, use his jab if possible, and look to out-box Postol over 12 rounds. The guys that have failed big time against Postol are fighters that tried to take the fight to him like Lucas Matthysse and Selcuk Aydin.
This is a very winnable fight for Crawford. Postol is not that great fighter despite his stoppage win over the much shorter 5’6” Lucas Matthysse. Postol’s marginal talent showed itself in his fights against Hank Lundy and DeMarcus Corley. Those guys gave Postol a lot of problems but in the end, they were out-boxed and lost.
If Postol fights smart, uses his reach, and jabs like crazy, he could in theory beat Crawford by a decision. It’s unlikely that Postol will be able to KO Crawford because he’s not that kind of a puncher. It will depend on how desperate Crawford gets if he falls behind in the fight like Matthysse did. Postol is dangerous when he has a desparate opponent that tries rushing him, because he’s got a good right hand that he likes to throw. He could time Crawford and stop him with a right hand.
As far as Postol getting a decision, history tells us that he likely won’t get a decision against a highly hyped Top Rank fighter like Crawford. The B-side fighters tend to mostly lose in Top Rank cards, and it’s hard to see Postol getting a decision against Crawford. It’ll look bad if Crawford is given the decision in a fight that he appears to lose, but it wouldn’t be surprising to me.
“On Saturday I will prove that I am not an underdog once and for all,” Postol said.
Postol is bugged that the oddmakers have installed Crawford as the favorite in the fight despite the fact that Postol is unbeaten too. One reason why Crawford is the favorite is because the betters have seen a lot more of his fights than they have Postol’s. With Postol, the oddsmakers likely have only see his fights against Matthysse and Selcuk Aydin for them to form an opinion of who will win on Saturday night. That’s the problem.
There are too many unknowns with Postol for the average person to assume that he’s going to beat a guy like Crawford, because he’s been carefully matched by Top Rank to make him look better than he actually is. The fans think Crawford is really good based off mostly soft match-making, but they don’t know what to think about Postol because they haven’t seen him fight enough.
Here are the official weights for the card:
Terence Crawford 140 vs. Viktor Postol 139.5
Oscar Valdez 126 vs. Matias Rueda 125
Jose Benavidez, Jr 146.5 vs. Francisco Santana 148
Oleksandr Gvozdyk 175 vs. Tommy Karpency 174.5
Ryota Murata 161 vs. George Tahdooahnippah 161.5
Lenny Zappavigna 143 vs. IK Yang 143
Edward Williams 144.5 vs. Christon Edwards 144.5
Stanyilav Skorokhod 155 vs. Hakim Bryant 155
Steve Nelson 173 vs. Tim Meek 171