The bad news is that the co-feature of February 16th’s ESPN show, which is headlined by Ray Beltran vs. Paulus Moses for the vacant WBO lightweight title, won’t be Eleider Alvarez vs. Oleksandr Gvozdyk. The good news is that Lithuanian smashing machine Egidijus Kavaliauskas has reportedly agreed to face former WBA welterweight champ David Avanesyan.

Kavaliauskas (18-0, 15 KO), whom our own Radu spoke highly of back in 2016, had to dig deep against Cameron Krael a couple Octobers ago but has smashed his last three opponents. He’s enormously entertaining, but is taking a legitimate step up against Avanesyan (23-2-1, 11 KO), who gave Lamont Peterson a solid run for his money last February.

ESPN also reports that Olympic standouts Shakur Stevenson and Robson Conceicao are booked against TBA, while Bryant Jennings is set to fight Akhror Muralimov at heavyweight.

What do you guys think; is “The Mean Machine” for real?