Photo by: Naoki Fukuda

Terence Crawford wouldn’t go so far as to call Viktor Postol a dirty fighter. But Crawford’s trainer, Brian McIntyre did say he planned to discuss what they believe is Postol’s penchant for excessive holding and using his elbows with the referee before their July 23 junior welterweight unification match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on HBO PPV.

“We sat down and we talked about it,” McIntyre said on a conference call on Wednesday. “And we’re going to make sure that (referee) Tony Weeks knows that we’re very concerned about all that extra stuff that he does in the ring.”

When Crawford (28-0, 20 knockouts) watched Postol’s big win against Lucas Matthysse last October, he says he noticed a lot of roughhouse tactics, something he thinks the “Ice Man” regularly does in his fights.

“I think a lot of excessive holding and using his elbows that the referee didn’t warn him about,” Crawford said on the same call. “All in all he did what he had to do to get the job done.”

But Crawford isn’t concerned. “I’ll just be myself,” he said. “Stay relaxed, stay composed and just do what we’ve been working on in camp. I just hope the referee notices it and does what he has to do to take action to make sure those types of things don’t happen during the whole fight.”