Crawford hands Kavaliauskas first career defeat

By: Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

“Once I said I’ll get it done, expect nothing but a knockout.”

Terence Crawford once again reigned supreme in the WBO Welterweight title bout against Egidijus Kavaliauskas, dealing the former Olympian his first career loss after sending him down to the canvass in the 9^th round.

Kavaliauskas started the match flawlessly after surprising Crawford with sneaky jabs and heavy right-hand straights.

As the match progressed, Crawford began to adjust and dictated the exchange but the more technical style of the former Olympian scored him early connections with cleaner jabs.

Crawford then began to slow the pace and looked to counter Kavaliauskas’ style and it worked perfectly.

During the start of the 7^th round, Crawford began to seek the timing of his right-hand bombs that wobbled Kavaliauskas up to the ninth.

With a massive flurry of heavy right and left jabs, Crawford was able to knock down Kavaliauskas down in the 8^th.

Crawford then found the perfect opening to unleash his signature uppercut set-up shot and that paved the way for the second knockdown of the match.

With Crawford’s dominant win, will he fight Manny Pacquaio or the recovering Errol Spence?