The one thing that hurt more to Egidijus Kavaliauskas than watching a golden opportunity slip away on the title stage was having to sit on that pain for the past nine months.
With an eagerly awaited return to the ring came the first win in nearly two years for Kavaliauskas, who stopped Quebec’s Mikael Zewski in the 8th round of their ESPN+ main event Saturday evening at The Bubble in Las Vegas. Kavaliauskas scored knockdowns at the end of round seven and just after the opening bell to start round eight, with the stoppage win coming immediately thereafter.
“I wanted to do it faster but it still happened,” Kavaliauskas told ESPN’s Mark Kriegel after the fight. “You can never count on the knockouts. I was applying pressure, he was slowing down round by round. I saw him weakened. He wasn’t throwing his same punches.”
The win was the first for Kavaliauskas (22-1-1, 18KOs) since a 3rd round stoppage of unbeaten Robert Arriaza in November 2018. Since then came a 10-round draw with Ray Robinson last March, followed by a 9th round stoppage defeat at the hands of unbeaten welterweight titlist Terence Crawford (36-0, 27KOs) last December at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
There is no shame in losing to Crawford, one of the sport’s pound-for-pound best. The heartbreak comes in the strong showing put forth by Kavaliauskas early in the fight, even flooring the Omaha, Nebraska switch hitter in round three—despite the sequence being waved off as a slip. It was a moment that would soon pass, with Crawford breaking down Kavaliauskas in scoring knockdowns in rounds seven and nine to force a stoppage.
A few months after the loss came the first wave of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic which all but shut down the sport throughout the spring. Boxing returned in some capacity this past June, though with elite fighters such as Crawford still awaiting an assigned ring return. The likely next step in his career will come in a November 14 clash with former welterweight titlist Kell Brook, though terms have yet to be reached.
With the best of the rest of Crawford’s divisional competition all residing under the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) banner and fighting on Showtime and Fox Sports, options remain limited for the ESPN-committed champ. As much as is not lost on his most recent title challenger, who would love nothing more than to be the next one as well.
“I think Crawford right now doesn’t have no other choices at welterweight,” points out Kavaliauskas. “I’m the guy he needs to face. I can ask him and his team with respect, give me a rematch. Because he has no opponents yet. I don’t see him giving Crawford a better fight than I did.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox