Kavaliauskas speaks after drawing with his opponent Ray Robinson, describing as bullsh’t.
The much awaited fight might have not reserved enough impression after both settled for a draw. There was a common agitation from opponents of Terence Crawford’s welterweight title defense against Egidjius Kavaliauskas. During his previous appearance, the fighter Kavaliauskas could not opt for any option than to settled for a 10-round majority draw with Ray Robinson.
The Lithuanian contender is yet to taste a defeat in his professional career as he never been taken to the ground before. The WBO retained Kavaliauskas for the title of Crawford as its mandatory challenger as he did not lose to Robinson.
Kavaliauskas admitted after the fight he hard few challenges and that when he boxed Robinson, he wasn’t at his best. On March 30 at 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, the warrior dubbed “Mean Machine” still couldn’t believe that one judge scored their fight for Robinson (97-93) and the other two even had it (95-95, 95-95).
He said: “The word in my head was bullsh-t,” Kavaliauskas lament to BoxingScene.com earlier to the media on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden. “I knew I won the fight because how can you win the fight if you just try to survive and try to run in all the rounds? Yeah, it was upsetting, and I was kind of sad from that fight. But that fight has already passed, so I’m not looking back, I’m looking forward.”
The matchmakers of Promoter Bob Arum put Kavaliauskas in the ring against Robinson (24-3-2, 12 KOs) because they wanted to learn how to face a southpaw. Technically, Crawford is an orthodox fighter, but most of the time the Omaha, Nebraska, fights native from a southpaw stance.
The 31-year-old Kavaliauskas (21-0-1, 17 KOs) will challenge Crawford (35-0, 26 KOs) at Madison Square Garden (ESPN; 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT) on Saturday night in the main event of a seven-fight card.
Through throwing 18 more total punches than Robinson (88-of-432 to 70-of-527), CompuBox praised Kavaliauskas. for Kavaliauskas (61-of-191 to 41-of-129), CompuBox counted more power punches and a few more jabs for Robinson (29-of-398 to 27-of-241).
“I didn’t think the other guy would be so crafty in the ring,” Kavaliauskas said. “He was just running and moving in the ring. That was not my best performance in that fight, yeah. But we learned that some guys will run. They’re not gonna go and fight with me because they know that I have power. So, guys will run and I need to chop them down, little by little, step by step, round by round, not just try to go there. Crawford’s a great champion. He’s not gonna run. He’s gonna fight with me.”
Crawford didn’t see the Kavaliauskas-Robinson battle, so he wasn’t able to give an opinion on who won. However, Kavaliauskas does not think that Crawford overlooks him because he fought for a draw with Robinson, who was stopped by Yordenis Ugas.
