It took Egidijus Kavaliauskas a while to make a statement on Saturday. Once he did, though, it was loud.
“Mean Machine” trailed Mikael Zewski on two of the three cards when he ended the fight in a span of about 10 seconds, winning by knockout seven seconds into the eighth round of a scheduled 10-round welterweight bout inside the “bubble” at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Zewski (34-2, 23 KOs) outworked Kavaliauskas (22-1-1, 18 KOs) early in the fight, generally beating his Lithuanian opponent to the punch and landing more eye-catching power shots than him.
However, by the fifth round, Kavaliauskas begin to pick up his pace. He followed up his effective jab with more and more power shots as the fight progressed – many to the body – and Zewski, while always game, started to slow down.
Then, with only seconds to go in Round 7, things changed dramatically. Kavaliauskas landed perfect right uppercut that buckled Zewski’s knees and followed with a flurry that sent the Canadian into the ropes for a knockdown.
Zewski got up on shaky legs at the count of 9 and the round ended a second after the action resumed.
However, he didn’t last much longer. Kavaliauskas, clearly aware that Zewski was hurt, landed a hard right hand that put Zewski down again. And that was enough for referee Kenny Bayless, who stopped the fight immediately.
Two of the judges had Zewski ahead by the same score after seven rounds, 67-65, meaning they had Zewski leading five rounds to two. The third judge had it 67-65 for Kavaliauskas, four rounds to three.
Of course, the winner took it out of the judges’ hands.
Kavaliauskas was asked whether he had made the statement he hoped to make coming off his ninth-round knockout loss to 147-pound titleholder Terence Crawford in December.
“I wanted to do it faster,” he said. “You can’t count on knockouts. I was working, making pressure and he was slowing down. Every round I could tell he was getting weaker and weaker.”
Kavaliauskas’ immediate goal is to get another shot a title, preferably in a rematch with Crawford. However, the pound-for-pounder is in talks to defend against Kell Brook in his next fight.
Kavaliauskas holds out hope that Crawford’s limited options will lead to a second fight.
“There are no opponents for him,” Kavaliauskas said. “And I don’t see anyone who gave him a better fight than I did.”
In the co-feature, featherweight contender Joet Gonzalez (24-1, 14 KOs) gave a strong performance in a unanimous-decision victory over veteran Miguel Marriaga (29-4, 25 KOs).
Marriaga was busy throughout the fight but was easy to hit, which allowed Gonzalez to land many more power shots than the Colombian.
The scores were 99-91, 99-91 and 97-93, all in favor of the Los Angeles-area fighter.