Crawford vs. Postol PPV numbers rumored to be 50K

By Boxing News - 07/29/2016 - Comments

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By Allan Fox: For some fans hoping to find the next superstar in the Floyd Mayweather Jr. mold, they were sadly disappointed last Saturday night with a less than Mayweather-esque performance from unbeaten WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford (29-0, 20 KOs) in his 12 round unanimous decision win over WBC 140lb champion Viktor Postol (28-1, 12 KOs) on HBO pay-per-view at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Promotional company Top Rank needs a new pay-per-view star to replace their No.1 star Manny Pacquiao, and boxing needs a replacement for the retired Floyd Mayweather Jr. There was hope that the 28-year-old Crawford could be the next Mayweather both in talent and in PPV bulling ability.

The latest rumors involving the PPV numbers for the Crawford vs. Postol fight aren’t promising. I’m hearing the fight brought in around 50,000 buys. Those are not at the 75,000 PPV buys that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum reportedly talked about as being the breakeven point for the Crawford-Postol bout. If the does fail to reach the break even point in PPV buys, then it’s very likely an official number will never be released to the public.

If the fight failed to generate 75K PPV buys, then it lost money. It was going to be a tough ask to get boxing fans to purchase a fight card headlined by Crawford vs. Postol. The 84-year-old Arum probably realized that it would likely lose money due to Crawford and Postol being too unknown fighters to the casual boxing fans. This would be a real disappointment for the hopes of Crawford being the next PPV star. If all Crawford can bring in at the ripe age of 28, then that doesn’t bode too well for him becoming a future PPV star. The guys that have become PPV stars in the past like Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Miguel Cotto, they were all bringing in far more than 50,000 PPV buys in their first attempts at PPV.

There is a Mayweather quality to Crawford’s fighting style when you take a glance for a few seconds. However, once you sit and actually watch Crawford fight for more than 10 seconds, you quickly realize that he’s nothing like Mayweather in terms of being an entertaining fighter. Mayweather mainly stood in the pocket looking to pot shot his opponents and counter them.

Crawford doesn’t stay in the pocket. He moves around, holds and waits for countering opportunities. Crawford is more of a spoiler type of fighter than Mayweather. Crawford is kind of like a fighter that you see sitting on a big lead, tying up his opponent, moving around the ring, trying not to get hit with anything silly in the final round. Crawford rarely takes the fight to his opponents like Mayweather used to do. Crawford can be entertaining at times, but only for brief periods.

If Top Rank wants Crawford to be the next superstar in the Mayweather mold, then they’re going to need to coach him in how to fight like the “Money” man, because the way he fights now is not nearly as entertaining as the retired star in my opinion.

Crawford has the hint of talent going for him in terms of hand speed, power and counter punching ability, but he seems to lack the aggressiveness and the ring presence to get to the net level where Mayweather occupied for the last 20 years.

Here are the areas where I believe that Crawford needs to change for him to become the next Mayweather:

1. Stay in the pocket more – Stop moving around the ring!

2. Take the fight to your opponents in the same way that guys like Gennady “GGG” Golovkin does.

3. Stop holding each time your opponent comes close to you. Learn to fight on the inside so that you don’t need to hold 24/7

4. Smile more inside and outside of the rings. Tell jokes.

5. Try for knockouts. Don’t be content with winning fights by decisions.

6. Never run in the 12th round. Instead, go after your opponent and finish strong.

7. Stop showboating. You’re not good enough to showboat, and it looks bad when you do that.

8. Be a more entertaining fighter because right now you’re too boring.

Top Rank wants Crawford to be a star, but it takes more than wanting to turn someone into a star. They’ve got to possess the combination of talent, guts, ring IQ and charisma for them to get to the next level to become a PPV star. Right now, I see Crawford coming up short in every area that he needs for him to become a star.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum needs to sit down with Crawford and have a long talk where he gives him a list of areas he needs to change in his fighting style and personality outside of the ring that he needs to change so that he can have a better chance of making him a PPV star.

Arum might want to bring a couple of videos with him of Mayweather and Gennady Golovkin’s past fights where he can give Crawford different fighting styles that he can model his own fighting style after to become a star. Then Arum can have a good public relations guy work with Crawford to build his image outside of the ring. In other words, a star maker that helps shape Crawford’s personality outside of the ring. They could go over all kinds of things besides his personality, the way he talks and the way he dresses.