Tonight on HBO Terence Crawford (29-0, 20 KOs) puts both his WBC and WBO Super Lightweight title belts on the line tonight against John Molina Jr. (29-6-0, 23 KOs) at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Nebraska.
In the undercard, we should get a lightweight fight between Ray Beltran (31-7-1, 19 KOs) taking on Mason Menard (32-1, 24 KOs).
As always, scroll on down for the live blog. Keep reading for the press release from HBO.
Crawford vs. Molina Fight Preview
Following his clowning of Viktor Postol in July, Terence Crawford returns Saturday night on HBO World Championship Boxing (9:35 PM ET/PT). Back in his hometown of Omaha, Neb., Crawford expects to put an exclamation mark or two on his 2016 when he meets John Molina Jr. Crawford schooled Postol in the rudimentaries and then some, and Molina, whose toughness can be indexed in direct relation to his paucity of skills, would do well to avoid a similar lesson.
But if Crawford anticipates an opponent prepared to lie down and take his teaching, then he’s in for a rough night. Molina might know far less than Crawford about the intricacies of the jab, but then again he’s never been particularly interested in intricacy. Molina, from Covina, Calif., is far more invested in flinging out his punches than he is in measuring or considering them. That doesn’t necessarily bode well for beating Crawford, for whom deliberation is not anterior to but adjacent with his fighting, and who has thus far shown considerable excitement in exacting punishment. Nonetheless, Crawford (29-0, 20 KOs) was occasionally reticent to put an end to Postol’s whinnying this year, a luxury that Molina-for better or worse-is unlikely to allow. Crawford will have to fight each minute.
Molina (29-6, 23 KOs) comes into this fight off a career-best win, having mauled Ruslan Provodnikov for a unanimous decision in June. What that means is uncertain. Provodnikov has in recent years been one of the most steadfastly violent fighters in the sport, with a string of brutal fights against Tim Bradley, Mike Alvarado and Lucas Matthysse. Provodnikov is in some way always on the receiving end even in victory: For every ounce of hurting he puts on, he absorbs similar punishment. So the extent to which Molina’s victory was a matter of the Siberian’s inevitable slowing down remains an open question. And as Molina recently said, “Crawford and Provodnikov are like apples and oranges; they’re two different beasts.”
That win over Provodnikov broke a nasty streak for Molina, who had lost consecutively to Matthysse, Humberto Soto and Adrien Broner over the course of 11 months between April 2014 and March 2015. The Broner loss in particular seems to bode poorly for Molina’s chances against Crawford. During that fight, the Californian seemed to freeze up, landing only 50 or so punches through 12 desultory rounds and succeeding mostly in making Broner look a little less fraudulent than usual. Crawford is twice (or more) the fighter Broner is.
All the same, that loss provided Molina an occasion to learn from. Boxing smoothly just isn’t his style. Molina must be neither on-beat nor off-beat: He has to throw in the gaps and splices and clinches, whenever granted the opportunity.
The fight is on HBO at 9:35 p.m. Watch it with me.
