By Allan Fox: Egidijus “Mean Machine” Kavaliauskas (22-1-1, 18 KOs) got a big come from behind 8th round knockout win against Mikael Zewski (34-2, 23 KOs) on Saturday night on a Top Rank card on ESPN at The Bubble at the MGM Grand conference room in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Kavaliauskas pulled a victory out of the jaws of defeat by dropping Zewski hard in the closing seconds of round seven. He was badly hurt, and the bell saved him from being knocked out by Kavaliauskas.
With only a bit of time try and recover in between rounds, it was impossible for Zewski. As soon the bell sounded to start the 8th, Kavaliauskas jumped on him and knocked him down again.
This time the referee Kenny Bayless stopped the fight. You can argue that the stoppage was a little quick, but oh well. The time of the stoppage was at 0:07.
After the fight, a hopeful Kavaliauskas expressed interest in challenging WBO 147-pound champion Terence Crawford (36-0, 27 KOs) in a rematch. Crawford knocked out Kavaliauskas in the 9th round last December.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is trying to set up a fight between Crawford and former IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook, and he likely won’t be interested in scheduling a rematch with Kavaliauskas. The boxing public aren’t going to demand that Crawford fight Kavaliauskas.
“I don’t think Crawford has any other choices at welterweight. I can ask his team, with all due respect, to give me a rematch because these guys have no opponents yet,” said Kavaliauskas.
“You can never count on the knockout. I was working. I was putting pressure on him.
“I saw him slowing down round by round. I saw him getting weaker and weaker. I was just blocking his punches and not feeling his power.”
It’s not that big of a shock that Kavaliauskas won the fight, as Zewski had never fought anyone talented during his 10-year professional career.
During all those years, the best guy that Zewski had fought was Konstantin Ponomarev in 2015, and he lost to him by a lopsided 10 round decision.
Top Rank has been keeping Zewski around for a long time without matching him against quality fighters, and tonight you found out why. Zewski doesn’t have the talent to hang with the better guys.
Joet Gonzalez defeats Miguel Marriaga
In the co-feature bout on the card, featherweight contender Joet Gonzalez (24-1, 14 KOs) bounced back from his loss to Shakur Stevenson to defeat a surprisingly weak and listless Miguel Marriaga (29-4, 25 KOs) by a one-sided 10 round unanimous decision.
The scores were 97-93, 99-91, and 99-91. Boxing News 24 had it for Joet by a 99-91 score. Marriaga looked like the shell of the fighter that had lost to Vasiliy Lomachenko and Oscar Valdez in 2017. He had won his last four fights entertaining into tonight’s contest, but he had nothing against the younger fighter Gonzalez.
Using his high work rate, Gonzalez, 26, buried Marriaga with punches and was too busy for him to compete.
Gonzalez will now likely tank Marriaga’s place in the top five in the World Boxing Organization’s rankings, and he’ll be in the position to challenge for the title soon. Emanuel Navarrete and Ruben Villian will be battling it out for the vacant WBO featherweight title.
Other boxing results on the card:
- Aleem Jumakhonov TKO 3 Jorge Ramos
- Manuel Flores TKO 5 Jonathan Rodriguez
- Anthony Chavez UD 6 Adan Gonzales
- Eric Puente UD 4 Luis Norambuena