VADA reports Crawford vs. Postol test negative

By Boxing News - 07/11/2016 - Comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f6wef8egeM&feature=youtu.be

By Chris Williams: Unbeaten WBO light welterweight champion Terence “Bud” Crawford (28-0, 20 KOs) and WBC light welterweight champion Viktor Postol (28-0, 12 KOs) have both reportedly tested negative in their VADA random testing as part of the clean boxing program. Crawford and Postol will be facing each other on July 23 on HBO PPV at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Crawford and Postol’s promoter Bob Arum sees one of the two emerging as a big star after their fight. It depends on what Arum means as a star. If he means a star like in a Danny Garcia type of star, then I think that’ s definitely possible. But if Arum means a star like in Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Floyd Mayweather Jr., then I don’t see that as realistic.

I think Crawford would need a much better scalp than Postol’s if he wants to become a major star. Crawford would probably need to clean out the entire 140, 147 and 154lb divisions for him to become a big star. The reason being is each division is so weak right now that there’s not enough big names for anyone to become a star right now in those divisions.

Crawford could be transformed quickly into a star if he beat Cotto and Canelo, but I don’t think he’s ever going to get a fight against either of those guys. I could be wrong, but I don’t see Arum ever being able to get Crawford a fight against the likes of Cotto or Canelo. Arum could take a huge gamble and throw Crawford in with Gennady Golovkin and pray that he doesn’t massacred by the Kazakhstan star.

I just don’t think it would work out too well for Crawford against Golovkin. It would be like feeding hors d’oeuvre to a hungry shark. Golovkin would likely tear Crawford apart. It would be worth a try for Arum to turn Crawford into a real PPV attraction overnight, but I just don’t think it would work out too well for him.

Crawford might have his hands full with Postol this month. I’m just wondering what Arum will do if Crawford loses the fight. Does he start to push Postol as the next big star or does he still concentrate on Crawford? I don’t know if it would be smart for Arum to push a guy that was beaten by Postol. Even if Crawford does beat Postol, how popular can he get at 140?

There’s not a lot of fan interest in that division. If Crawford moves up in weight, who is he going to fight? If he’s only going to fight WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas and the little known contenders in the World Boxing Organization’s rankings, then I don’t see Crawford becoming a star. I’m not holding my breath waiting for Crawford to fight Al Haymon’s fighters Danny Garcia, Shawn Porter or Keith Thurman.

I don’t know if Crawford has the bone structure to beat those guys. He’s kind of thin-boned and I think he might too fragile to beat the more solid welterweights. I don’t see it as a good idea for Arum to throw Crawford into the murky waters of the 154lb division where he could get devoured whole by the likes of the Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara, and Julian Williams. More importantly, I don’t think Arum could get Crawford those fights.

If Crawford moves up in weight to 154, he might be stuck in the same situation as he is now with his options kind of limited due to the different promoters not matching their fighters against other promotional companies some of the time. Arum is said to have patched things up with Haymon. If that’s true, then maybe Crawford could fight guys like Thurman, Danny Garcia and the Charlo brothers. I’m not holding my breath waiting for those fights to happen. I think Crawford is better off staying at 140, because he’s kind of thin boned. Thurman is built like a short middleweight. I don’t think it would be a good idea for Crawford to fight him.

“Sparring Tim is what first got people to notice me,” Crawford says in the remarkably well-done HBO mini-doc, “Terence Crawford: My Fight.” “Because up until then, people were looking at me as a bar fighter,” Crawford goes on. “When we were sparring, it was totally different because it was back and forth and everyone was going, who is this kid? And (Bradley) was like, ‘Man, you aren’t no sparring partner.’ He was like, ‘Dude, you’re a world champion. Trust me.’”