Viktor Postol/Photo courtesy of Top Rank Inc.
Terence “Bud” Crawford is a top 10 pound-for-pound fighter. Viktor Postol is not – not yet, anyway. That means that Crawford will likely be picked by more experts to win when he squares off with Postol in a junior welterweight title-unification bout July 23 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas (on HBO pay-per-view).
Postol, of the Ukraine, couldn’t care less.
“I do not consider myself an underdog in this fight,” he said. “Terence Crawford’s fans might consider me as the underdog, but that does not bother me. I’m 100 percent confident in myself and in my victory on July 23 and the reasons are simple:
“I work harder in training camp than my opponents because I have to. Because I want to. I have the best trainer working with me and his name his Freddie Roach. He has been named Trainer of the Year a record seven times and he is in the Hall of Fame.”
Postol, speaking from his camp in Hollywood, dug deeper.
“Crawford has no one like that on his team,” he said.
Roach spoke in equally feisty tones.
“I do not feel that Viktor is an underdog going into this fight,” he said. “Why should I? In his two toughest tests – Lucas Matthysse and Selcuk Aydin – he didn’t just knock them out, he took their will to fight away. He broke them down brick by brick.”
Postol stopped Aydin in the 11th round at the Fabulous Forum in May 2014 and he knocked out the hard-hitting Matthysse in the 10th round in his most recent fight in October at StubHub Center.
“His experience against blue-chip opposition has been great preparation for his fight with Terence Crawford,” Roach said. “Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for Crawford. He has a lot of talent. But I think this is going to come down to resumes and I think Postol has fought tougher and better opponents than Crawford.
“Postol even spent an entire training camp with Manny Pacquiao in 2014 when Manny was preparing for Chris Algieri. Viktor more than held his own against Manny. Crawford is going to find out that defending a title against Hank Lundy and Dierry Jean is a lot different than fighting a fellow undefeated world champion like Viktor Postol.”
Crawford, who also has won a title at lightweight, has made his two junior welterweight title defenses against Lundy (TKO 5) and Jean (TKO 10).
Crawford, 28, is from Omaha, Neb. He is 28-0 with 20 knockouts. Postol, 32, is 28-0 with 12 knockouts.