Crawford beats Postol, puts fans to sleep

By Boxing News - 07/24/2016 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: Top Rank’s fighter Terence Crawford may not have proven that he’s American’s next big star tonight, but he did prove that he was good enough to beat WBC light welterweight champion Viktor Postol by a 12 round unanimous decision at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Crawford got a couple of knockdowns in the 5th of Postol. The first knockdown was a trip after Crawford hit Postol with a weak right hand. Postol tripped over Crawford’s lead foot. The second knockdown was a slip by Postol while retreating. Neither knockdown should have counted in my view. Postol lost a point in round 11 on a rabbit punch. It was a fair call. I didn’t see a warning given to Postol before that.

As far as Crawford proving he’s the replacement for Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, he failed in that department. America has already adopted middleweight Gennady Golovkin, so it doesn’t matter that Crawford is from the U.S. He’s not an exciting fighter, as he showed tonight. He’s very boring to watch.

While some boxing fans feel that Crawford’s fight against Postol tonight proved that he’s America’s next star, I think the jury is still out. Until Crawford proves he can bring in PPV buys and high ratings, then you have to believe that he’s not the next star. I think WBA welterweight champion Keith Thurman and WBC champion Danny Garcia are bigger stars than Crawford.

My main issue with Crawford tonight was the fact that this was a pay-per-view fight that cost American boxing fans $59.99 to see it. When you’re the headline act on your own card, you have a responsibility to the fans to try and make it exciting the same way guys like Golovkin does.

I’m sorry, but I do think that Crawford made it exciting. I’m not into watching movement for 12 rounds. Crawford’s apologists can fawn over him and say it was beatifically boxing. It clearly wasn’t though. If you think that was beaitufol boxing, then you need to go back and watch some old tapes of Floyd Mayweather Jr., Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali. Now that is beautiful boxing. What we saw from Crawford tonight was ugly with him running and stinking up the joint.

Crawford out-landed Postol by a significant margin. Crawford landed 141 of 388 punches for a connect percentage of 36, according to CompuBox. Postol landed 83 of 244 punches for a connect percentage of 34. They were pretty close in the connect percentage department. One reason for that was because Crawford was playing it safe on the outside all night long and not willing to come forward and risk getting hit with Postol’s jabs.