Welcome back to another edition of Beating the Odds With Beeb and the matchup that we are going to preview and predict this week is next Saturday’s junior welterweight unification showdown between Viktor Postal and Terence Crawford.
Once again we find ourselves with another 50/50 fight but I have to be honest here the odds are totally baffling to me. Viktor Postal is a whopping +525 while Terence Crawford is a -750.
Ok so let’s talk about this fight. I know there are many people high on Terence Crawford right now and most of those people seem to believe that he is the best junior welterweight in the world. Although I do agree that he is very talented I still think that there are questions that still have to be answered about him and I feel that he will have the opportunity to answer most of those questions against Viktor Postal.
When you watch Terence Crawford fight it’s hard to not notice and appreciate how athletically gifted he is. He is a quick explosive fighter with decent punching power with the ability to switch stances from orthodox to southpaw. Many of his recent opponents such as Hank Lundy, Dierry Jean, and if you go back to 2014 even Yoriorkis Gamboa were smaller than Crawford and not really strong enough to hurt or keep him off them. They all had some success boxing Crawford from the outside at points in the fight but when Crawford decided to walk them back and impose his will and shorten up the distance he was able to wear them down and eventually take them out. Crawford is a very versatile fighter offensively and mixes up his attack very well going upstairs and downstairs and once he gets a fighter hurt he is a very good finisher. But there are points in fights where he has shown to be vulnerable defensively particularly on the outside and he also seems to be susceptible to a good, quick jab. Thomas Dulorme showed some success with that punch before being stopped in the sixth round. Crawford has a tendency to give away early rounds and then makes adjustments as the fight wears on to come back and take over the fight and win. Whether or not he can afford to do this against Postal remains to be seen.
Viktor Postal’s claim to fame is being the first and only man to stop the hard hitting knockout machine Lucas Matthysse. Postal also has a knockout victory over the rugged Selcuk Aydin who is another man that has never been stopped before. In my opinion Matthysse is a better fighter than anyone Crawford has on his resume. Postal is a very tall and rangy junior welterweight and seems to have a significant size advantage over Crawford in terms of height and reach which I feel he can use to his advantage in this fight. Postal fights extremely well from the outside and has an excellent jab which he uses well not only set up his sharp right hand but he also uses it very effectively to disrupt his opponent’s offense not allowing them to get set. I also believe he has and ability to control the pace of the fight by picking and choosing his spots wisely and slowing his opponents down when they get close with effective clinching. He appears to be a strong fighter as he has shown against pretty rugged guys like Matthysse and Aydin.
He also throws a sneaky uppercut on the inside and he camouflages his right hand pretty well behind his jab. So in my opinion he has what I like to call sneaky power and even though he doesn’t have a ton of knockouts he can take guys out with shots they don’t see or expect.
So let’s cut to the chase. Who wins and why? Well I don’t think that Crawford will be able to bully and impose his will on Postal like has done to smaller fighters. And I also think that Postal will be able to expose some of Crawford’s defensive liabilities that I feel he has on the outside. If Crawford gives away the early rounds against Postal I don’t think he will be able to rally back and take out Postal like he has been able to do against the smaller less talented guys that he has fought recently. So I expect Postal to outbox Crawford with a very comprehensive performance. Beating the Odds with Beeb is taking Postal with the +525 in what I think is a very good value play here.
Once again we find ourselves with another 50/50 fight but I have to be honest here the odds are totally baffling to me. Viktor Postal is a whopping +525 while Terence Crawford is a -750.
Ok so let’s talk about this fight. I know there are many people high on Terence Crawford right now and most of those people seem to believe that he is the best junior welterweight in the world. Although I do agree that he is very talented I still think that there are questions that still have to be answered about him and I feel that he will have the opportunity to answer most of those questions against Viktor Postal.
When you watch Terence Crawford fight it’s hard to not notice and appreciate how athletically gifted he is. He is a quick explosive fighter with decent punching power with the ability to switch stances from orthodox to southpaw. Many of his recent opponents such as Hank Lundy, Dierry Jean, and if you go back to 2014 even Yoriorkis Gamboa were smaller than Crawford and not really strong enough to hurt or keep him off them. They all had some success boxing Crawford from the outside at points in the fight but when Crawford decided to walk them back and impose his will and shorten up the distance he was able to wear them down and eventually take them out. Crawford is a very versatile fighter offensively and mixes up his attack very well going upstairs and downstairs and once he gets a fighter hurt he is a very good finisher. But there are points in fights where he has shown to be vulnerable defensively particularly on the outside and he also seems to be susceptible to a good, quick jab. Thomas Dulorme showed some success with that punch before being stopped in the sixth round. Crawford has a tendency to give away early rounds and then makes adjustments as the fight wears on to come back and take over the fight and win. Whether or not he can afford to do this against Postal remains to be seen.
Viktor Postal’s claim to fame is being the first and only man to stop the hard hitting knockout machine Lucas Matthysse. Postal also has a knockout victory over the rugged Selcuk Aydin who is another man that has never been stopped before. In my opinion Matthysse is a better fighter than anyone Crawford has on his resume. Postal is a very tall and rangy junior welterweight and seems to have a significant size advantage over Crawford in terms of height and reach which I feel he can use to his advantage in this fight. Postal fights extremely well from the outside and has an excellent jab which he uses well not only set up his sharp right hand but he also uses it very effectively to disrupt his opponent’s offense not allowing them to get set. I also believe he has and ability to control the pace of the fight by picking and choosing his spots wisely and slowing his opponents down when they get close with effective clinching. He appears to be a strong fighter as he has shown against pretty rugged guys like Matthysse and Aydin.
He also throws a sneaky uppercut on the inside and he camouflages his right hand pretty well behind his jab. So in my opinion he has what I like to call sneaky power and even though he doesn’t have a ton of knockouts he can take guys out with shots they don’t see or expect.
So let’s cut to the chase. Who wins and why? Well I don’t think that Crawford will be able to bully and impose his will on Postal like has done to smaller fighters. And I also think that Postal will be able to expose some of Crawford’s defensive liabilities that I feel he has on the outside. If Crawford gives away the early rounds against Postal I don’t think he will be able to rally back and take out Postal like he has been able to do against the smaller less talented guys that he has fought recently. So I expect Postal to outbox Crawford with a very comprehensive performance. Beating the Odds with Beeb is taking Postal with the +525 in what I think is a very good value play here.
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