Purses: Crawford $1.3M, Postol $675k

By Boxing News - 07/22/2016 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: WBO light welterweight champion Terence “Bud” Crawford (28-0, 20 KOs) will be getting most of the loot this Saturday night in terms of purses for his unification match against WBC 140lb champion Viktor Postol (28-0, 12 KOs) on HBO PPV at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Crawford will be getting $1.3 million for the fight compared to $675,000 for the 32-year-old Postol.

Both fighters are with Top Rank, but Crawford is going to get most of the cash for the fight. That should tell you a little about the pecking order for this promotion. Of course, this could all change in the future if Postol blasts Crawford apart or beats him soundly be a decision.

Crawford is seen as the guy that will be the next big star for the company. If that fails to happen and if Postol wins, it’s going to send shockwaves through Top Rank. They’re going to need to refocus and think of whom next to start hyping like mad. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum would likely be quick to circle his wagons around Postol and start giving him the heavy push in an effort to make him Top Rank’s replacement PPV fighter for Manny Pacquiao, who may not be around more than one or two fights before he retires for good.

I’m not sure feasible it would be for Arum to put a lot of money and energy in trying to turn the 32-year-old Postol into the next PPV star, because he’s probably not young enough to make the leap. Besides that, Postol is in the wrong division to become a huge star. The last time I checked, there haven’t been any PPV stars at 140. To be sure, you had Manny Pacquiao make it big while fighting at 140, but he didn’t make the big money until he was fighting welterweights. I don’t see Postol or Crawford having the frames, hand speed or killer power to start knocking off the top welterweights like Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Errol Spence Jr. or Danny Garcia. Those guys would likely walk Crawford and Postol down and stop them in short order.

“Purses: Crawford $1.3M, Postol 675k, Valdez 140, Rueda 30k (plus more from Argentina), Benavidez 50k, Santana 50k, Gvozdyk 30k, Karpency 50k,” said Dan Rafael on his Twitter.

If Crawford beats Postol on Saturday, you can bet that Arum will try his best to get Pacquiao to agree to fight him. It would be a passing of the baton if Pacquiao loses to Crawford. A real disaster for Arum would be for Pacquiao to turn Crawford into another Ricky Hatton.

Arum would be stuck with Crawford for years and years after such a loss, whereas Pacquiao would soon be retiring and leaving the old promoter with no one to take his place. Arum will try and turn Top Rank Gilberto Ramirez as a big star, but there are major question marks whether he can ever become a star. Ramirez is too much of a runner to become a big star, and his style of fighting will likely fall apart when faces someone that knows how to cut the ring off.

Pacquiao can make an old man happy if he bends to the will of the 84-year-old Arum and agrees to be the stepping stone for Crawford to trod on to get him to the top. The aging Pacquiao would be the sacrificial lamb to temporarily turn Crawford into a mini-star in the sport. I don’t see Crawford as having the talent to move up to welterweight and do what Pacquiao did. That’s why Crawford’s popularity would be fleeting. If Arum makes the mistake of matching Crawford against a sturdy welterweight like Spence or Thurman, he’ll get taken apart and reduced to rubble on the canvas. Thurman and Spence would walk right through Thurman. Crawford is too frail to keep those guys off of him. Arum should know that ahead of time so that he doesn’t make the wrong move by matching Crawford against either of them. I think it would be a very good idea if Crawford stays at 140 for his entire career because he simply doesn’t have the build to move up in weight. I would say the same thing to Gennady Golovkin about him not making the mistake of moving up to 168 or 175. He doesn’t have the size to fight in those weight classes, so he shouldn’t even try.