Terence Crawford 147 vs. Egidijus Kavaliauskas 146 1/2 – weigh-in results

By Boxing News - 12/13/2019 - Comments

By Sean Jones: WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford weighed in at the limit at 147 pounds for his title defense against ‘Mean Machine’ Egidijus Kavaliauskas on Friday for their fight this Saturday night on December 14 at Madison Square Garden in New York. For his part, the 31-year-old #1 rated WBO contender Kavaliauskas (21-0-1, 17 KOs) weighed in at 146 1/2 lbs. The fight will be shown on ESPN+ at 9pm ET/6pm PT.

Kavaliauskas looked TERRIBLE against Ray Robinson

The two-time Kavaliauskas needs a better effort than what he showed in his last fight in dueling to a 10 round draw against Ray Robinson last March. For those who saw that fight, Kavaliauskas was INCREDIBLY lucky to get a draw out of the fight, since he looked like he should have lost.

His A-side status probably saved him from getting beaten on the night. The World Boxing Organization still chose to keep Kavaliauskas at #1 after that fight. They probably should have dropped Kavaliauskas to the bottom of their ranking, because Robinson isn’t a ranked contender.

Terence trying to keep focus on Kavaliauskas fight

Crawford, 32, has been working hard trying to build up his fight with Kavaliauskas this week, but it’s been fruitless. The boxing media have shown little interest in talking about Crawford’s fight with Kavaliauskas. Instead, they’ve been asking Crawford repeatedly about his thoughts on fighting the PBC welterweights Errol Spence Jr., Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman.

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Seemingly frustrated at the focus on the PBC fighters, Crawford has even come out and said that he only wants to discuss his fight with Kavaliauskas this weekend. That hasn’t worked though, as the only things the media wants to know is about Crawford fighting the PBC fighters.

“I’m real motivated. I know he’s a good opponent, and he’s coming in a seek and destroy mode to take my title away from me, and that’s something I’m not going to let happen,” said Crawford to IFL TV about his title defense against Kavaliauskas. “That’s something I’m not going to let happen this weekend.

I shut them out. I’m not worried about those fights or those fighters at this point in time,” said Crawford in talking about the PBC welterweights. “The only fight I’m thinking about this Saturday is this one, and all the other fighters can talk until they can’t talk no more.

“I’m not going to focus on that. When those fights present themselves, and if those fights are in front of me, and those are the fights I’m fighting, then we’ll talk about it. Until then, the fight that I’m focused on is the one that’s this weekend,” said Crawford about his title defense against Kavaliauskas.

Crawford said he wants to move up to 160 after this fight, but he wasn’t serious. His promoter Bob Arum wants to match him against Shawn Porter or one of the top light welterweights.

Crawford doesn’t care how he wins

“My job is to focus on this fight this weekend, and making sure my hand is raised at the end of the night. I would be disappointed that I couldn’t get the fights that I wanted to get in the welterweight division, but at the same time, I would be satisfied with how my career ended and how it went,” said Crawford when asked if he would be satisfied with his career if it ended right now.

“Victory,” said Crawford when asked if he wants to score a knockout over ‘Mean Machine’ Kavaliauskas. “As long as it’s a win,” said Crawford.

It would be better if Crawford shines against Kavaliauskas, because he needs impressive performances to increase his popularity. Crawford has won a number of fights in the last few years in which he didn’t look that great. His fight with Viktor Postol is a perfect example of that.

Rather than looking to finish strong in the 12th, Crawford got on his bike, and moved around the ring, sticking his tongue out at Postol while the fans booed. It was a terrible way for Crawford to finish the fight, especially given that it was on pay-per-view.

Crawford needs to start caring about how he look, because he’s his promoter Bob Arum’s job a lot harder by not putting on great performances.

Richard Commey vs. Teofimo Lopez – Weigh-in results

IBF lightweight champion Richard Commey (29-2, 26 KOs) weighed ni at 134 1/4 lbs for his title defense against mandatory Teofimo Lopez (14-0, 11 KOs). The Top Rank promoted Lopez weighed in at 134 1/4 lbs. This is a very important fight for both Commey and Lopez, because the winner will be facing WBA/WBC/WBO lightweight champion Vasiliy Lomachenko in early 2020 for the undisputed 135-lb championship.

Arum believes that the 22-year-old Teofimo has superstar written all over him, but the boxing world doesn’t see that. Initially, they thought the Brooklyn, New York native Lopez could have star potential, but his last fight against Masayoshi Nakatani caused him to lose fans.

Lopez’s stock went down dramatically with the way he struggled to beat Nakatani, and with some of the comments he made afterwards. Lopez sounded like the opposite of a future star when he said that he won’t have to fight anymore tall guys. The fight looked like a draw rather than a win for Lopez, but the judges gave him a win by the following wide scores: 118-110, 119-109, 118-110. Boxing News 24 had the fight a draw.

Lomachenko isn’t impressed with what he’s seen of Teofimo, and he’s picking the 32-year-old Commey to beat him. This will be Commey’s second defense of his IBF lightweight title that he won last February in stopping Isa Chaniev in round 2.

In Commey’s first defense of his IBF belt, he stopped former lightweight world champion Raymundo Beltran in the 8th round last June. Commey dropped the 38-year-old Beltran FOUR times in the contest, knocking him down two times round 1, down in round 5 and round 8.

All weights

Terence Crawford 147 vs Egidijus Kavaliauskas 146.6
Richard Commey 134.2 vs Teofimo Lopez 134.4
Mick Conlan 125.8 vs Vladimir Nikitin 126
Edgar Berlanga Jr 164.8 vs Cesar Nunez 164.8
Josue Vargas 139.8 vs Noel Murphy 138.2
Julian Rodriguez 141.6 vs Manuel Mendez 140.8