By Chris Williams: Former WBO light welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov thinks WBC 140lb champion Viktor Postol (28-0, 12 KOs) has a real chance of beating the favorite WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford (28-0, 20 KOs) in their fight this Saturday night on HBO pay-per-view at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Provodnikov thinks the oddsmakers don’t know what they’re doing in picking Crawford over Postol, because they’ve never put on a pair of gloves before and they don’t know what Postol is capable of doing.
“This is just a statistic. These people never wear the gloves and never get inside the ring, Anything can happen,” said Provodnikov to IFL TV about the oddsmakers making Crawford the favorite over Postol.
“This is boxing. It’s unpredictable. One punch can change everything. All the odds are nothing. I know that Viktor is ready. He has something to prove. A lot of people just see Viktor as the next fighter, but it’s not true. Viktor is very tough and very strong, and very comfortable to fight. This is a very tough fight,” said Provodnikov.
Postol has a very good chance of winning this fight if he can stay on the outside and jab Crawford all night long. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum thinks that Crawford is going to be the new star in the sport, but a lot of that is just wishful thinking from an 84-year-old promoter, who needs a new star to take the baton from Manny Pacquiao.
The Filipino star is at the end of the line and is playing out his stream. Arum needs a new star that can step into Pacquiao’s shoes and carry on as a big PPV attraction. But it’s not that easy to replace a star like Pacquiao. It’s like trying to replace a great quarterback. Sometimes it can take decades before a team finally replaces a star signal caller. I don’t think Crawford is going to be the guy that will take over the sport, and I think he might even close to Postol.
It won’t be a shock if that happens because Crawford has never done anything in the ring to make me think he’s the next star. I don’t rate Crawford as being in the same league as guys in a division above him like Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Errol Spence or Kell Brook. If you’re the next star in boxing, you’ve got to at least be able to beat all the guys in the next division above you. I don’t think Crawford can do that. I don’t think he can even beat the No.4 guy in the welterweight division.
We really can’t know who will win the Crawford-Postol fight because both guys haven’t been matched up against enough quality fighters to tell us anything. Crawford has only faced gone good fighter in his career in Yuriorkis Gamboa, and he was struggling badly against the Cuban fighter until he slipped on the canvas in round five and was knocked down.
Gamboa lost his cool after the slip, and he then started to slug rather than box like he’d done in the first four rounds. Crawford didn’t look good in his fight against Briedis Prescott in 2013. Crawford’s biggest wins have come against Ricky Burns, Raymundo Beltran, Dierry Jean, Henry Lundy, Thomas Dulorme, Gamboa and Andrey Klimov.
When asked about the Golovkin vs. Brook fight, Provodnikov said, “I don’t think Brook is tough enough to do something against Triple G. It just depends on how he takes the first punch of Triple G. We’ll see with the first punch. When Triple G lands that punch and Brook can take it, then it’ll be a fight. If not, then it’ll be the same thing we’ve already seen,” said Provodnikov.
IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) will be fighting Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) on September 10 at the O2 Arena in London, England. We don’t know how Brook will do in the fight. He’s never fought a middleweight before. We do know that Golovkin is considered to be the best fighter in the 160lb division. But he’s also never been tested before. Golovkin has never fought Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and he’s not fought Daniel Jacobs. You can’t say for sure that Golovkin will win this fight because there are too many unknowns in this fight.