On Saturday, December 14, at New York?s Madison Square Garden, WBO welterweight champion Terence ?Bud? Crawford (35-0, 26 KOs), the fighting pride of Omaha, Nebraska, will meet his mandatory, Egidijus ?Mean Machine? Kavaliauskas (21-0-1, 17 KOs) from Kaunas, Lithuania, in defense of his 147-pound title.
The fight will be televised live on an ESPN tripleheader that also features lightweights Richard Commey vs. Teofimo Lopez and featherweights Michael Conlan vs. Vladimir Nikitin.
In a press release from Top Rank, Crawford is called the ?pound-for-pound boogeyman.? That sounds great, but what does it mean? ?Pound-for-pound? is simple. It means what it says. But ?boogeyman? is harder to place. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a boogeyman is a ?terrifying specter.? Crawford is one hell of a fighter, that?s for sure, even though he hasn?t been tested. Whether he is seen as a ?terrifying specter? in a division as deep as any in the sport is impossible to say until he fights another elite welterweight to test his mettle.
So who is ?The Mean Machine??
?Egidijus Kavaliauskas is a two-time Olympian,? said Crawford, ?and I can?t take him lightly. He?s got everything to gain and nothing to lose and that makes him dangerous.?
Kavaliauskas is a seasoned fighter, if not yet a seasoned professional.
?My father was a fighter,? he said, ?something like martial arts?karate, Thai boxing, kickboxing, judo, everything together. He was training when I was a little kid.
?When I was seven, he started training me and a couple of other kids. But martial arts in my country, people train just for hobby. Then when I was 13, he just put me to the boxing.
?I think I had maybe around 300 amateur fights. My record was probably around 260 wins and 40 losses.?
?The Mean Machine? turned pro in 2013. He won a unanimous decision in his debut, and then proceeded to stop three of every four men he faced.
He is a pressure fighter with fast hands and killer instinct. On the downside, he tends to throw caution to the wind, which could be disastrous against a sharpshooter like Crawford.
?I have prepared my whole boxing career for a fight of this magnitude,? Kavaliauskas said. ?Terence Crawford is an excellent fighter, but I fear no man. Nobody has seen the best of the ?Mean Machine? yet. I am going to shock a lot of people on December 14, but it won?t be a surprise to me. I earned this title shot. It is my time.?
It is also Crawford?s time. But like sand in an hourglass, time will eventually run out, and while he is rich beyond his wildest dreams, his career has somewhat stalled, and a victory over Kavaliauskas, even if decisive, is not what most people want to see.
But some feel otherwise.
?This is the best fight card of the year? said Top Rank chairman Bob Arum., and Madison Square Garden is a fitting venue for what will be a special night. Terence Crawford is a generational talent, but he?ll have his hands full against the ?Mean Machine.??
