NEW YORK CITY – For a moment or two, panic took root Saturday at Madison Square Garden.
It started in Round 3, when a mean overhand right sent the sweat flying from Terence Crawford’s brow, causing the welterweight titleholder to hold onto the man who threw the punch, the challenger Egidijus Kavaliauskas. An unfamiliar sight. A slew of combinations from the Lithuanian led to Crawford touching the canvas in what should have been ruled a knockdown – but referee Ricky Gonzalez saw otherwise, calling it a slip.
And it continued in the next round, with Kavaliauskas landing flush right-hand counters. The message was clear enough: Kavaliauskas, the fighter whose name did not even merit spelling or pronouncing leading up to the fight, did not make the trek to New York City to simply lie down.
And Crawford? The Omaha native simply smiled, bit down on his mouth piece and trawled forward in the direction of the gunfire.
In what played out to be his most challenging fight at welterweight, Crawford still found a way to break down Kavaliauskas, dropping him three times and stopping him 44 seconds into Round 9.
“I thought I had to entertain ya’ll for a little bit,” said Crawford (36-0, 27 KOs). “He’s a strong fighter, durable, and I thought I’d give the crowd something to cheer for.”
After Kavaliauskas (21-1-1, 17 KOs) connected on his blistering right in Round 3, Crawford gave up on finesse and adopted a far more dogged approach: high guard, plodding footwork and a mindset geared toward hurting his man. “Take two to land one,” as the dictum goes.
“I wasn’t hurt at all,” Crawford said, regarding Round 3. “I got up and went straight to him. I wasn’t hurt by no means. I walked through everything he threw all night.”
Case in point was the pivotal Round 7. Crawford, who by this time had switched from a southpaw to an orthodox stance, absorbed two point-blank left and right punches from Kavaliauskas. Crawford’s response? He simply stood in the pocket and responded with his own fierce combinations, before eventually landing two straight rights that dropped the Lithuanian for the first time in the fight.
From then on, Kavaliauskas was a marked man. Crawford opened up his arsenal, landing an array of straight lefts, uppercuts and sweeping right hooks that had Kavaliauskas teetering from pillar to post. Chants of “Crawford” filled the arena from a reported 10,101 in attendance.
“The round before that, my coaches kept telling me [to] stop loading up,” Crawford said. “I was loading up a lot because the first couple clean shots I landed, I knew I hurt him. I wanted to give the crowd a knockout. When I started letting my hands go, I started landing more fatal shots.”
Crawford delivered the finishing touches in Round 9, dropping Kavaliauskas with a left hand, right uppercut. Referee Ricky Gonzalez allowed the fight to go on, but after Crawford downed the challenger again with a right hook, Fields waved off the fight.
The promotion had been clouded by talk of Crawford’s inability to lure into the ring other top 147-pounders, who are aligned with Premier Boxing Champions. Crawford, who fights for Top Rank, addressed those concerns by shifting the burden of responsibility to the likes of Errol Spence, Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia, Manny Pacquiao, et al.
“I’ll fight anybody,” Crawford said. “I’ve been saying that for I don’t know how long. I’m not ducking anyone on the PBC side or Top Rank platform.
“I want to fight all the top guys.”