Crawford, Postol set for July 23 unification fight

7:53 PM ET

Junior welterweight titleholders Terence Crawford and Viktor Postol, regarded as the two best 140-pound fighters in the world, will meet to unify their belts on July 23. The deal, in the works for the past few weeks, was finalized Monday with the Postol camp signing off.

Crawford signed his contract about two weeks ago. The fight will headline an HBO PPV card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and will include super middleweight world titleholder Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez making his first defense against Dominik Britsch in the co-feature.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum would have preferred to make a deal with HBO for Crawford-Postol to be on the network, rather than pay-per-view, but HBO’s budget issues prevented that from happening. Arum at least made a very attractive fight for big stakes.

“It’s a very good matchup, the best you can make in the junior welterweight division,” Arum told ESPN.com. “What it really is is a fight for supremacy in the division. I’m very pleased with it, and I think it will be a very competitive fight.”

The fight will be the first on pay-per-view for either fighter. Arum said he would need to generate about 75,000 buys, at about $50 apiece, to break even on the event.

Crawford (28-0, 20 KOs), 28, of Omaha, Nebraska, the former lightweight champion and 2014 fighter of the year, moved up to junior welterweight and won a vacant world title by sixth-round knockout of Thomas Dulorme 13 months ago. He scored knockouts in his first two defenses, in the 10th round against mandatory challenger Dierry Jean in October and in the fifth round against Hank Lundy in February.

His …

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