Terence Crawford vs. Egidijus Kavaliauskas likely for early 2019

Boxingnews24.com

By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford took care of business last Saturday night in defeating challenger Jose Benavidez (27-1, 18 KOs) by a 12th round knockout last Saturday night at the Chi Health Center in Omaha, Nebraska.

After the fight ended, Crawford said,“I want ‘em all,” in talking about wanting to face the top welterweights Errol Spence Jr., Shawn Porter, Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia.

Unfortunately, the fighter that Crawford will likely be facing next is fellow Top Rank fighter #2 WBO Egidijus Kavaliauskas (20-0, 16 KOs), according to Dan Rafael. Kavaliauskas and Alexander Besputin (11-0, 9 KOs) will be fighting in a WBO welterweight title eliminator against on November 16. The winner is expected to be the 30-year-old Kavaliauskas, who is expected be Crawford’s next opponent. Since Kavaliauskas is signed on with Top Rank, which it makes it unfortunately another in house fight involving Crawford facing his promoters fighters.

If Crawford vs. Kavaliauskas is next, then it’ll be his third straight fight against a Top Rank fighter, and his 5th in his last 11 fights. It’s up to Top Rank if they mostly want to match Crawford against mostly fighters from their own promotional stable, but the boxing public wants to see him fight the talented fighters like Spence, Thurman, Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter rather than Kavaliauskas, Jose Benavidez Jr., Jeff Horn, Viktor Postol and Raymundo Beltran.

“I want all of [those fights], I’ve been saying it. I said what I said. I’m willing to fight anyone. I’m not ducking no one. I don’t make the fights. I fight them,” Crawford said to ESPN.com about his interest to fight the murderers row of Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter.

The fans want to see Crawford fight all of those fights, particularly IBF welterweight champion Spence Jr. 24-0, 21 KOs). However, Crawford’s promoter 86-year-old Bob Arum of Top Rank has already stated that he no interest in matching him against Shawn Porter and Garcia, as he doesn’t see them as elite fighters. Right now, the only name that Arum wants from that list is Spence. Thurman, 29, hasn’t fought since March of 2017, and he’s having a hard time returning to the ring due to injury problems. Arum didn’t bother

Getting the Crawford-Spence fight done is going to be tough to do for Top Rank promoter Arum. It doesn’t help that Arum has been busy matching Crawford up against his own fighters. Crawford doesn’t appear to mind though. He made over $3 million for his fight last Saturday night against Benavidez. Crawford’s situation is a lot like former two division world champion Tim Bradley, who after he signed with Top Rank, he fought Manny Pacquiao three times, Brandon Rios, Jessie Vargas and Juan Manuel Marquez.

Those were all fighters signed with Top Rank. However, the guys that Bradley didn’t fight were fighters not signed with Top Rank like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Keith Thurman, Spence, Danny Garcia. Bradley eventually retired after his third fight with Pacquiao. After losing to Pacquiao for the second time, there was virtually no chance for a fourth fight on the horizon for them, and Bradley had little options for big money fights outside of continuing to fight the Filipino star. With Crawford making good money to fight non-threats like Benavidez, it takes away the need for him to fight the better fighters outside of his Top Rank stable. Why fight guys that can potentially beat you like Spence, Thurman and Porter when you’re getting soft opposition that you can beat with ease like Benavidez, Postol, Beltran, Horn and Kavaliauskas.

Since it doesn’t appear that Top Rank is interested in matching Crawford against Spence at this time while there’s still options for fights within their promotional company, Errol’s management will be putting together a unification fight between him and WBC 147 lb champion Shawn Porter (29-2-1, 17 KOs), who is coming off of a 12 round unanimous decision win over Danny Garcia last month on September 8 in a fight for the vacant World Boxing Council welterweight title.

Spence vs. Porter will be an excellent fight for the boxing fans, as it will give the winner of the fight a second title that was previously held by the injury prone Keith Thurman. What this means is that for a future fight between the likes of Crawford and the Spence-Porter winner, it’s going to mean that there will need to be some give on Top Rank’s part.

With Crawford only holding one title and facing guys like Benavidez, Horn and Kavaliauskas. Those aren’t good enough fighters to make Crawford a bigger name. While Crawford is busy beating those fighters, Spence is going to be busy beating the likes of Porter, Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman. Spence has already beaten Kell Brook, a fighter that is unquestionably better than anyone that Crawford has ever fought before during his 10-year pro career.

“He wants to take on the biggest. We want to provide the biggest,” Top Rank president Todd Duboef said to ESPN.com. “We will take on all comers. That’s it. We don’t care where you are, what you do. We will go and take on all comers. Terence is an elite fighter. He is at that class. We’ve done the biggest fights”

If Duboef is serious about wanting to match Crawford against all comers, then he needs to face Spence, and take on the other top fighters like Danny Garcia, Thurman and Porter. However, it would be a bad idea for Top Rank to match Crawford against Spence next, because what we saw from his fight against Benavidez doesn’t suggest that he would be able to hold his ground for any length of time. Crawford couldn’t hold his ground in the center of the ring against the one-legged Benavidez last Saturday night. Crawford had a guy with a bad knee in Benavidez, and he still couldn’t stay in the pocket to beat him in the center of the ring. The complications that would come with Crawford fighting Spence would see the Nebraska native taking punishment, and eventually getting worn down by the superior size. The problem that Crawford has is he’s moved up from 140 to 147, but he’s not a big fighter for the weight division. Crawford is still essentially a light welterweight who is being matched weakly by his promoters at Top Rank.