Given that Terence Crawford is all but guaranteed to vacate his remaining junior welterweight titles, the World Boxing Council has established its contingency plan. If all fighters accept, there will be a tournament involving Viktor Postol, Regis Prograis, Jose Ramirez, Mike Reed, and Amir Imam. Sounds good to me.
Jose Ramirez (20-0, 15 KOs) and Mike Reed (23-0, 12 KOs) are set to meet in a very compelling matchup on Top Rank’s November 11th ESPN card headlined by Jessie Magdaleno’s defense against Cesar Juarez. We don’t often see Arum matching his fighters together like this in even fights, but thankfully he is doing it here. The winner of that fight will be ordered to meet Amir Imam (20-1, 17 KO) in their following fight. Imam is 2-0 since his upset loss to Adrian Granados at the tail end of 2015.
On the other side of the bracket, Viktor Postol (29-1, 12 KO) and Regis Prograis (20-0, 17 KO) have been ordered to meet not only for this mini-tournament, but for an interim version of WBC world title as well. Presumably that belt will be elevated to full world title status once Terence Craword officially vacates, or maybe they will wait and declare the final fight in the four man field as the battle for the full belt. Postol, famous for his stoppage win over then red hot Lucas Matthysse, has only taken one recent fight since his loss to Crawford over a year ago. Prograis is a blue chip prospect coming off an impressive ShoBox early stoppage, but this would be a massive step up.
I won’t hold my breath here exactly as five fighters with five different situations means this is unlikely to work out exactly as planned, but it isn’t unrealistic either. While the IBF has already established its plan, the WBA or WBO could swoop in here and steal one of these guys with a direct shot, for example. All in all it is a good idea and a satisfying way to establish a new WBC junior welterweight titleholder if it can work out though.
