Postol: Matthysse is better than Crawford

By Boxing News - 07/12/2016 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: WBC light welterweight champion Viktor Postol (28-0, 12 KOs) respects his opponent WBO 140lb champion Terence Crawford (28-0, 20 KOs), and he sees him as a very good fighter in the division. However, Postol doesn’t rate the 28-year-old Crawford as high as his last opponent Lucas Matthysse.

Postol thinks Matthysse is a higher level fighter than what he’s seen of Crawford in his fights. Postol, 5’11”, stopped Matthysse in the 10th round last October at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. Postol and Crawford will be fighting this month in 11 days from now on July 23 on HBO pay-per-view at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Their promoter Bob Arum believes the winner of the Crawford-Postol fight will be the top fighter in the 140lb division. I don’t know if it’s something to brag about that the winner of the fight Crawford vs. Postol fight being the best fighter in the division.

The last time I checked, there’s pretty much no one left in the 140lb division now that Danny Garcia, Adrien Broner, Lucas Matthysse and Lamont Peterson have all moved up in weight. Arum needs to encourage Postol and Crawford to move up as well, because they have no one to fight except each other. If Arum wants to stick Crawford and Postol in with each other four or five times, which I wouldn’t recommend, then that’s all these two guys will have in terms of fights at 140.

“That does not mean he is the best I have fought,” said Postol. “I think Lucas Matthysse is a higher-level fighter than Crawford and everyone knows how my fight with Matthysse ended, with him knocked out and the WBC belt around my waist. And that is exactly where the WBC belt will remain after my fight with Crawford on July 23. Just above the WBO belt. I am looking forward to destroying Crawford — destroying his perfect record and destroying his reign as world champion.”

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I think Postol is right. Matthysse is better than Crawford in my view. I think Crawford is a decent fighter, but more of a paper champion than the real thing. He’s a champion right now in a dead division. The top guys at 140 right now are Ricky Burns, Postol, Crawford, John Molina, Ruslan Provodnikov and Eduard Troyaanovsky. In other words, the division is dead. You have to wonder why Crawford and Postol haven’t moved up in weight already to the 147lb division. My guess is they don’t have the talent to compete with the best in that division, so they’re electing to stay at 140 and be big fish in a small pond.