By Steve Kim
When WBO junior welterweight Terence Crawford (28-0, 20KOs) faces WBC belt-holder Viktor Postol (28-0, 12KOs) on July 23rd at the MGM Grand, he'll be doing so in a scaled down Grand Garden Arena. For this pay-per-view card only the lower bowl of the venue will be opened up( approximately 7,500 seats).
Promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank expects a sizable contingent of fans from Omaha, Nebraska to make the trek to Las Vegas to support Crawford.
"I think (they'll travel) pretty good. I think we'll do conservatively 3,000 people from Omaha,'' said the veteran promoter on Tuesday afternoon at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills where the formal press conference to announce this event was held.
Top Rank says that they'll help organize travel packages for these fans who have turned out in droves to support Crawford in his hometown.
"We're going to pull a lot of people from Omaha, we're doing a party for him. So I think you'll see a lot of 'cornhuskers',"said Arum, who envisions that one day Crawford will bring as many fans to 'Sin City' as Marvin Hagler did during his heyday from the East Coast.
Arum recalls,"Massachusetts, we were getting at least 6,000 people for a Hagler fight. So 6,000 out of the 15,000 tickets that we had available for a Hagler fight."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com