USA TODAY International Edition
Crawford confident in, out of ring
Welterweight now the star everybody thought he’d be
In March 2013, acclaimed boxing manager Cameron Dunkin got a call from Top Rank chairman Bob Arum asking him to offer his young unknown-but- unbeaten fighter Terence Crawford as a late replacement to face Colombian knockout artist Breidis Prescott on the undercard of the Brandon Rios- Mike Alvarado main event at Mandalay Bay.
“My immediate reaction was no. I told everybody no,” Dunkin said Wednesday after a news conference for Crawford’s junior welterweight title unification bout against unbeaten Viktor Postol on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena ( HBO pay- perview, 10 p. m. ET). “And then I said, ‘ But, it’s not up to me. I rep- resent him; let me talk to them and see what they say.’ ”
Dunkin was worried his fighter didn’t have the experience to deal with a feared puncher such as Prescott, a bigger man well known for knocking out Olympic silver medalist Amir Khan in the first round a few years earlier.
“Terence said, ‘ Please Cameron, just believe in me, I’ll win this fight.’ I said, ‘ Do you really want it?’ He said, ‘ Yes, I want it.’ ”
Crawford used his superior quickness and ring skills to take apart Prescott in the 10- round bout that stunned the boxing world.
“I could’ve cried, man,” Dunkin said. “I was so proud of the guy.”
Crawford, 28, said that fight kick- started his career.
“I was fighting for chump change,” he said Wednesday. “I wasn’t getting the recognition I deserved. I wasn’t getting the fights that I wanted.”
Dunkin knew all that, too, but he wasn’t sure Prescott was the right opponent.
“I hate to be so negative, but if he loses that night, and no one knew who he was, you know ( Top Rank) would have cut him loose,” Dunkin said. “You lose an undercard fight like that, and you might never be seen again.”
The fight that made “Bud” a pound- for- pound star happened 15 months later when Crawford, in his first defense of the WBO lightweight title he won against Ricky Burns in Scotland in March 2014, knocked out Cuban star Yuriorkis Gamboa after a shaky start in his hometown debut on HBO. Crawford knocked down Gamboa four times before it was stopped in the ninth round.
Suddenly Crawford ( 28- 0, 20 KOs), No. 4 on the USA TODAY Sports/ Boxing Junkie pound- forpound list, had become the star Dunkin, Arum — and, most important, Crawford himself — envisioned when he was brought into the fold.
Though he’s about a 6- 1 favorite to defeat Postol, a 32- year- old Ukrainian who is trained by seven- time trainer of the year Freddie Roach, Crawford is confident but under no illusions it will be an easy fight.
Postol ( 28- 0, 12 KOs), the WBC 140- pound champ, is coming off a career- defining KO of Argentine slugger Lucas Matthysse and has knockouts in two of the three fights he and offensive- minded Roach have worked together. Crawford, making his PPV debut, is aware of how big this fight is.
“It’s up there,” he said. “But being that Postol is not very well known in the U. S., it’s hard to label it as special. It’s 1 vs. 2 and the biggest fight to be made in the division, so what more can you ask for?”