Terence Crawford vs. Viktor Postol: Live Round-by-Round Reaction and Highlights

It's official: Terence Crawford is on boxing's biggest stage.

The Nebraska native took a one-sided star turn in the first pay-per-view starring role of his career on Saturday night, flummoxing fellow 140-pound title claimant Viktor Postol over nearly all of 12 rounds en route to a wide unanimous decision at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

He got the official nod by scores of 118-107 (twice) and 117-108.

Bleacher Report agreed with the majority, also scoring it 118-107 for Crawford, who improved to 29-0 and added the WBC's super lightweight title belt to the WBO championship strap he'd carried into the ring.

"I just stuck to what I knew, boxing," he told HBO's Max Kellerman after the fight. "They said he's got the best jab in my division, I proved different. Everybody kept saying I was running from him and I was scared of him. I proved different."

And outside of the initial nine minutes, it really wasn't close.

Postol earned two of the first three rounds with a stiff left jab and moderate pressure as Crawford circled, but Crawford settled down in the fourth to land some jarring shots and returned in the fifth to score knockdowns with both a looping right hook and a straight left hand.

They were the first two knockdowns Postol, who was 28-0 coming in, has suffered as a professional.

"I was just checking out his body language, seeing what he likes to do and what he doesn't like to do," Crawford told Kellerman of the initial stages.

From there, it was all Crawford, who continually landed the harder shots and occasionally had Postol wobbly, but never appeared on the verge of a knockout. Instead, he was content to get through the final few rounds unscathed while claiming superiority in the weight class and looking ahead to a possible match with Top Rank promotional client Manny Pacquiao.

Pacquiao, who announced his retirement after an April defeat of Timothy Bradley, has since recanted and said he'll return for a Nov. 5 match against a foe to be determined.

It could be Crawford right away, or, as HBO's Jim Lampley suggested, perhaps as the second fight of his comeback.

As for Crawford, he seemed interested, if not desperately so.

"I let my coaches handle that. I'm a fighter, I fight anybody," he said. "Anybody. I'm looking for all the biggest and best fights to get me to that next level."

In the final bout before the main event, Oscar Valdez graduated from Top Rank prospect to world champion with a devastating second-round stoppage of Matias Rueda that won him the vacant WBO featherweight title.

"It's a dream I've had since I was 8 years old," Valdez said.

The bout was for a belt vacated by Vasyl Lomachenko, whom Valdez met as an amateur and has suggested could be a future opponent.

"I want to fight the best. Anyone, whomever it is," he said.

Also on the four-bout pay-per-view card were a unanimous decision for Jose Benavidez Jr. over Francisco Santana in a rugged welterweight scrap and Oleksandr Gvozdyk's sixth-round KO of three-time world light heavyweight title challenger Tommy Karpency.

Postol was making the first defense of a crown he won with a surprising stoppage of Lucas Matthysse last fall in suburban Los Angeles, and the fourth ring appearance with trainer Freddie Roach—a former fighter who’s risen to corner prominence through his work with Pacquiao.

Crawford, meanwhile, was making his third defense of his second weight-class crown after a year-long run as the WBO’s champion at 135 pounds. He was the Boxing Writers Association of America’s Fighter of the Year in 2014 and is slotted sixth in The Ring magazine’s latest pound-for-pound rankings.