Pros react to Crawford’s successful defense against Kavaliauskas

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images

Terence Crawford retained his title once again, and his bona fide mean streak was the talk of the fight.

With a ninth round stoppage of a very game Egidijus “Mean Machine” Kavaliauskas, Terence Crawford made another successful defense of his WBO welterweight title, and closes out 2019 with a solid win — and, frankly, a hope for bigger fights in 2020.

Crawford was caught a few times early by the Lithuanian challenger, but all in all wound up looking like Terence Crawford: focused, determined, hungry, and a little bit mean between the ropes, as he turned things up and dropped Kavaliauskas once in the seventh round and twice more in the ninth, forcing the stoppage.

Fans will hope to see Crawford face one of the big-name PBC guys next year — Errol Spence Jr would be the golden ticket, but fights with Shawn Porter, Keith Thurman, or Danny Garcia would also be nice (Manny Pacquiao seems out of the running, as Bob Arum wasn’t interested in doing that fight when he had both under his banner and isn’t interested now).

Here’s what some pros had to say as “Bud” closed out another win on Saturday: