By: Bill Dwyre * – LAS VEGAS – Wednesday was yet another day of boxing fun and folly. There may be more colorful sports on the day of the actual competition. But there is none better than boxing during the run-up. These guys could make a turtle race sound like a Super Bowl.
Some of it was legitimate, even charming.
Viktor Postol of Ukraine, who will fight Terence Crawford of Omaha for the unified World Boxing Organization (WBO) / World Boxing Council (WBC)140-pound title here Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, greeted reporters with the news that he was a new father, as of Tuesday.
“Twin boys,” he said, beaming.
Then, in the middle of the media session, his phone rang and soon everybody was looking, via Facetime, at a weary and smiling mom. There was Olga Postol, telling her husband from Ukraine, that the anesthesia was just starting to wear off.
He was quickly asked the usual sportswriter cliché question of whether or not this would affect him in any way in the ring Saturday night.
“It maybe gives me extra energy,” Postol said, “but I’m just happy that everybody (Olga and new sons Lukian and Timofey) is healthy. All I have to do now is win.”
Postol’s trainer, the famed Freddie Roach, weighed in on things by saying he measured his own confidence in his fighters by his willingness to make a bet on them. He said he would do that at the Sports Book on Postol.
“Odds against him are 6-1,” Roach said. “That’s outrageous.”
Crawford started his media session by assuring everybody he hated all interviews. Then he spent half an hour charming a room full of interviewers.
He has built a gym in North Omaha, and said he did that because, as a youngster, the closest one for him to use was downtown.
“I’d ride my bike down there,” he said, “and then, when I was done working out, I was too little and too tired — and it was too far — to ride it back home. So coaches drove me home.
“I work out in my gym now, but not at any set time. When I get there, the kids are just kind of fooling around. But when I start to work, they look at me and then they start to get to work. I need to be a role model. Kids need somebody to give them hope, to tell them they have some talent and some skills.”
He was quizzed about who taught him to switch, so effectively and often in mid-fight, from an orthodox right-handed fighting stance to a lefty approach.
“I taught myself,” he said. “The first time I did it in training, my coach yelled at me. Then I did it again and he yelled at me again. Then we got into fights and I did it and he yelled at me, but it worked and he saw that. Pretty soon, he said we need to work that into our training sessions.”
But it was left to the master of all boxing ceremonies, Top Rank Promotions Chief Executive Bob Arum, to top it all, as he always does. Wednesday of big fight week is also always final news conference day. Which means Arum has a podium and an audience. Only God knows what will ensue.
It always starts fairly innocently, with introductions of hotel officials and HBO officials and other boxing dignitaries. You always think, about halfway through, that this time has a chance to be normal, maybe even boring.
But no. Never.
Bob Bennett, executive director of the Nevada Athletic Commission and one of several on the dais as sort of official window dressing, unknowingly gave Arum the little nudge he needed. Bennett spoke of good things going on in the sports he and his organization sanction and regulate and he made the serious mistake of tossing in mixed martial arts with boxing. His said both sports are now cooperating with drug testing programs.
Bennett yielded the microphone back to Arum, the volume turned up and lights on the soapbox got brighter. MMA is the most direct competitor that boxing has and Arum likes the sport like a five-year-old likes spinach. He said that drug testing was nice but not all that necessary because boxers don’t generally cheat. But as for MMA, “They aren’t concerned with drug testing. Why should they be? Their results come out after the fights. By then, everybody has their money.”
Then, with David Copperfield sleight of segue, he made it political.
“I’ll give you a little (New Jersey governor) Chris Christie here,” he said, gesturing above the audience like someone about to multiply bread and fishes: “Here. MMA. Guilty.”
He quickly made sure that everyone understood that his anger for Donald Trump supporter Christie was Christie’s Tuesday night convention speech attack against Arum’s longtime favorite, Hillary Clinton.
Arum was followed to the microphone by the president of the WBO, a Puerto Rican lawyer named Francisco Valcarcel, who said what many were thinking: “You are my hero, Bob Arum. If I say what you say, I am in prison.”
But in this state of Nevada, in this country of free speech, there was no holding back Arum. He ended the program with one last shot at Trump and the Republicans, referencing their decision to have MMA president Dana White speak at their national convention.
“Here we have this great intellectual analyst,” Arum said, sarcasm dripping, “opining on the state of our country.”
The proceedings wound down with more assurances that this would be a great fight and would certainly be worth HBO’s $49.95 pay-per-view price.
Bill Dwyre will be writing a series of weekly columns on the Crawford vs. Postol world championship event. Bill was sports editor of The Los Angeles Times for 25 years, ending in 2006. He was a sports columnist for 9 1/2 years at The Times, ending Nov. 25 with his retirement. Boxing was among his most frequent column topics. Bill can be contacted at BillPatDwyre@gmail.com or via Twitter at @BillDwyre.
Terence Crawford Takes a Shot and Succeeds
By Bill Dwyre * To borrow from a sports cliché, life is a game of inches.
In the case of Terence Crawford, who currently stands on the horizon of boxing fame, his existence is a result of winning a game of millimeters. Think of it as survival by the margin of the tip of your fingernail.
It was a September night in 2008 in Omaha, Neb., where Crawford lives. He was about to turn 21. Life was good. He had just won his fourth fight as a pro a month earlier. It was at the Johnson County Fairgrounds in Iowa City. Not exactly Madison Square Garden or the MGM in Las Vegas, but you have to start somewhere when you have your eyes on world titles and big stages in the 140-pound division. In a couple of weeks, he would fight on ESPN. Hundreds already knew who he was; now thousands, maybe millions would.
He should have been training that night. He admits that now. But when you are 21 and come from the hard streets of Omaha, or any other sizable city, you hang out with your boys.
So there he was, shooting dice under a street light. And winning.
The game went on, but Crawford saw a good exit moment. Take the money and run. It was the smart thing. The thing that turned out not to be smart was counting it first.
Crawford has told the story so many times that he no longer wants any part of it, even as the media descends on him in advance of Saturday night’s 140-pound WBC, WBO title unification fight against Victor Postol of Kiev, Ukraine, at the MGM Grand.
“I’m burned out talking about it,” Crawford says.
Nevertheless, what happened that night eight years ago on that street corner in Omaha, under that street light, will remain part of the lore of the now 28-year-old, undefeated star-in-the-making. There is no switching it off.
Crawford took his wad of cash, sat down in the driver’s seat of his 1986 Pontiac Cutlass Supreme and, instead of turning the ignition key and stepping on the accelerator, started counting his stash. He was easy to see in the car. He was parked under the same street light that had lit the dice game, a game which continued after he decided to leave.
He remembers all too well what happened next.
“I was counting,” he says. “…$20, $40….then, POW!”
He had been shot through the rear window of his car. The bullet, from a 9-millimeter gun, hit him in the right side of his head, just below his ear and above his neck. The shooter hadn’t been aiming at him, but at somebody in the group with whom he had been playing dice.
“I got hit,” Crawford says, “and so did one other guy. His arm was shattered and he still has to walk around like this.” Crawford illustrates, putting his arm against his chest, in a sling position.
The bullet didn’t lodge in Crawford’s head. But it did its damage — deep wound and lots of blood — and they found the shell casing later. Had the bullet not changed course ever so slightly as it went through the back window, it would have hit more directly, penetrated deeply and done enough damage to, most likely, be fatal.
Ah, but for that silly little millimeter.
Put yourself in this situation and ponder what you would have done. Speculate on your fear, your panic, your lack of cogent thought. Crawford drove himself to the hospital, calling both his mother, Deborah, and his trainer, Brian McIntyre, en route. It was nuts, as McIntyre readily attests to: Hi, how ya doing? I just got shot in the head.
“I had two immediate reactions,” McIntyre says. “My first was…(fill in your favorite cuss word. They all work). Then, I thought, why are you talking to me if you just got shot in the head?”
After sitting in a hospital emergency room with the usual chaos flying around him — “One woman was just out, unconscious; a guy came in with his face bashed in from a baseball bat, and I’m sitting there all bloody and they are telling me they will get to me as soon as they can but that I was in no danger and the others were,” Crawford says — he got stitched up and left, five hours later, with Deborah and McIntyre.
“He tells me he wants to go ahead with the ESPN fight in a couple of weeks,” McIntyre says. “I tell him he’s crazy, that that’s not going to happen.”
A short time later, Crawford’s son was born. That further helped him come to his senses. Nights out, running with the neighborhood boys, would be no more. Boxing was his way out, his way to a better and safer life. On Nov. 8, 2008, Crawford was back in the ring for career-bout No. 5, fighting and knocking out Michael Williams in the Valencia Ballroom in York, Pa.
The next 23 fights would bring the same results, as well as 20 knockouts and lots better venues. Saturday night’s battle with a lethal Postol could put Crawford well in the current forefront of boxing’s stars, especially if he wins impressively and is granted, by promoter Bob Arum and Top Rank, a shot at Manny Pacquiao in Pacquiao’s comeback fight.
But oh, how close that was to never being possible.
McIntyre says the bullet wound changed everything for Crawford, all in the right direction. It was, clearly, the ultimate dose of perspective.
We ask two last questions of Crawford: Did you find out who the shooter was? And was he caught?
The answers come in order of questions. First, a nod. Next, a shake of the head. Then, quick and chilling elaboration.
“The shooter is dead,” Crawford says. “He got shot in the head.”
Crawford Gets Ready for his Debutant Brawl
By: Bill Dwyre* Terence Crawford is in line to become boxing’s next celebrated debutant. All the things are in order for his coming-out party July 23rd in Las Vegas. It could be a ball.
He won’t be wearing a long gown. No corsage on his wrist. Just shorts and shoes and the tools of his trade, the boxing gloves with which he hopes to leave impressions on the face of Viktor Postol, and in the minds of a crowd of around 9,000 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
If boxing could produce a list of who is next, Crawford would certainly be high on it. The likes of Gennady Golovkin (Triple G), Canelo Alvarez and Andre Ward have all had their big moments and made their big impressions. No debutants there. They have been to big dances and now are maneuvering for the top of the heap in the sport. Nothing new about them. They have arrived and become gold-plated. Floyd Mayweather Jr., says he’s retired, and, surprisingly, he has remained that way. For now.
Manny Pacquiao said he was retired after the April victory over Tim Bradley. Few bought that, even with his impending Senator duties in the Philippines. The skeptics were right, as they usually are in boxing. Pacquiao announced this week that he will fight again, in either late October or mid-November. Suddenly, Terence Crawford’s debutante ball in Las Vegas is high on the list of sports’ big dances. That’s because, in all likelihood, the winner will get to go toe to toe with Pacquiao.
Big exposure. Big money. A fox trot into the big time.
Twin that with the ever-present thirst for something new and compelling and it becomes clear that Crawford, the favorite to prevail against Postol, can become boxing’s next emerging market.
In a conference call Wednesday, Crawford answered any and all questions about this sudden golden opportunity tossed in his lap by saying, about ten times, “I am only focused on this fight [Viktor Postol]. I haven’t even thought about what comes next.”
Indeed, and Donald Trump will soon make Ruth Bader Ginsburg his vice-presidential running mate.
Even before the Pacquiao situation arose, there were compelling factors about Crawford:
· He is a kid from Omaha whose nickname is “Bud” because his mother didn’t like people calling him “Spud.” He comes from a rough neighborhood in that Nebraska city and got in trouble a lot as a younger man. He even got shot in the head in 2008, while he was parked under a street light in Omaha, counting the money he had just won shooting craps under that same streetlight.
“It was like $20, $40…pow,” he tells an Omaha TV interviewer.
He drove himself to the hospital, calling his family along the way to let them know what had happened.
· He has a bit of a baby face, with sleepy eyes, and a smile that lights up the room. He is friendly, well-spoken, except for lots of verbs that don’t agree with nouns and reflect a somewhat typical inner-city education. He is friendly to the press, open and not the least-bit mysterious. He is also, at age 28 and 28 fights into his pro career (28-0 with 20 knockouts) fairly savvy about the ways and means of a major fight promotion.
“I want to be a worthy successor to Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather,” he says, showing respect for his sport’s history and its recent greats, while also elevating himself to their level by implication.
He also says, for those boxing fans who hate the nice-guy approach to a fight, “After July 23, my record will be 29-0, with 21 knockouts.”
· Depending on how you look at it, and how you read certain situations, Crawford might be a candidate for sainthood. Or for San Quentin. That covers the territory for most boxing fans.
He reconnected a couple of years ago with his favorite grade school teacher, Jamie Nollette. She told him she was traveling frequently to Africa, to places such as Uganda and Rwanda, on humanitarian and fact-finding missions. He said he wanted to go along and has done so. Twice. From all reports, the experience has touched him deeply, so much so that, at one point, he literally gave away the shirt on his back.
“We take so many things for granted,” he says, “like food and water.” And Then he talks about the horror of watching desperately thirsty people drink from dirty puddles on the street. “The same place where the tires go through,” he says.
But then, there was the incident last April in Omaha, when he and several friends went to an auto shop, apparently were displeased with the paint job on Crawford’s car and caused such a ruckus — including taking the car down off the hydraulic lift themselves and damaging the lift — that Crawford was arrested. He turned himself in to police and the case now appears headed to a civil court.
· Even before Pacquiao said he was coming back, the July 23rd fight was a real one, not a stepping stone to another stepping stone. It will be Crawford’s first main event pay-per-view show. It will be held in what has become a cradle for big-deal fights, the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It will unify the 140-pound division. Crawford is the WBO champion and Postol the WBC king. The $49.95 price tag that promoter Top Rank has put on the fight confirms that it thinks this is a big deal, and Top Rank has been gauging big deals for more than 50 years.
Crawford’s opponent, Postol, became a big deal himself when he beat the feared and favored Lucas Matthysse last fall. Not a lot of people in boxing saw that coming. Postol went from “who is he?” to “OMG, you don’t want to fight him.”
Nor is it likely that Postol, of Kiev, Ukraine, also 28-0 with 12 knockouts, is a one-shot wonder. His trainer is Freddie Roach, one of the best-ever in the sport. Roach says Postol followed the game plan against Matthysse to perfection and that there will be a game plan against Crawford.
In answer to a question about specifics to that plan, Roach says, “He [Postol] has a height advantage, a reach advantage, and a jab to set everything up.”
Roach was so impressed that one of his fighters listened so intently to him that he called Postol’s victory over Matthysse “one of the greatest wins of my career.”
Were Postol to win and Top Rank decide that he is worthy of the shot against Pacquiao, it would mean one Roach-trained fighter against another. Who Roach would train is a no-brainer. “I’ve been with Manny for 15 years,” he says. “We are like father and son.”
Postol says he understands that and has another trainer in Ukraine, if needed.
Crawford can dance and he can slug. He often switches from conventional right-handed stance to lefty. He did so against a tough guy named Yuriorkis Gamboa two years ago, in a fight in Omaha. It was one of a series of recent building block tests, as Top Rank watched with great interest. He lost the first few rounds, just figuring out the awkward Gamboa, who alternately charged and flailed, then just charged and held on. Eventually, Crawford knocked Gamboa down four times, the fight being stopped the fourth time.
It was an impressive performance. Crawford never showed a moment of panic or concern. He was both workmanlike and flashy, making him and his future prospects intriguing.
One veteran ringside observer in that one, broadcaster Larry Merchant — a man not given to easy hyperbole — came, saw and was conquered.
“Terence Crawford has become an American star,” Merchant said.
Merchant is seldom wrong, but if the boxing world needs more, July 23 offers a chance for the perfect exhibit A. Perhaps followed by Crawford-Pacquiao.
They could call that one “Dancing with the Stars.”