By Keith Idec

When asked about potential opponents, Terence Crawford mentioned Viktor Postol’s name second, right after Manny Pacquiao.

“It’d be good,” Crawford told krikya360.com regarding a fight against Postol. “It’d be for The Ring magazine belt, the lineal title.”

Postol was about a 3-1 underdog entering his fight against Argentine power puncher Lucas Matthysse, but the unbeaten Ukrainian out-boxed and dropped him, before eventually making Matthysse quit on one knee in the 10th round Oct. 3 at StubHub Center in Carson, Calif.

The undefeated Crawford felt all along that Postol (28-0, 12 KOs) would beat Matthysse (37-4, 34 KOs, 1 NC), so he wasn’t the least bit surprised when it happened in a HBO “Boxing After Dark” main event.

“He did good,” said Crawford, who, like Pacquiao and Postol, is promoted by Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc. “He did what he was supposed to do. Being that Matthysse couldn’t handle the boxing abilities, he did what he was supposed to do.

“If you look at Matthysse’s record, you see that everybody that really boxed Matthysse, they beat him – instead of getting in the trenches and trading with him, for him to land big shots.”

Crawford (26-0, 18 KOs), a consensus top-10 fighter on most mythical pound-for-pound lists, is scheduled to return to the ring Saturday night in his native Omaha, Nebraska. The 28-year-old 140-pound champion will defend his WBO junior welterweight title against Montreal’s Dierry Jean (29-1, 20 KOs) in a 12-round main event at CenturyLink Center (HBO; 9:30 p.m. ET/PT). 

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and krikya360.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.