Kavaliauskas KO’s Avanesyan In Six

By Marc Livitz: In the evening’s co-main event, unbeaten NABF welterweight champion Egidijus Kavaliauskas successfully defended his title with an impressive sixth round knockout victory over David Avanesyan on the Beltran/Moses undercard in Reno,Nevada.

The opening three rounds were very much a feeling-out process until Kavaliauskas (19-0, 16 KO’s) landed a solid left hook which openly shook his Russian opponent. In the fourth, Avanesyan (23-3-1, 11 KO’s) was able to score his best points thus far after switching to a southpaw position, which seemed to throw Egidijus off his rhythm just a bit. He landed a few right hands after his native Lithuanian adversary continued to move the wrong way. “Mean Machine” Kavaliauskas began to stand on his jab in the fifth, yet David got him to back off at times thanks to counter shots to the body.

Midway through the sixth round, Kavaliauskas swung around the guard of Avanesyan with a crushing right hook. David answered with an ineffective jab and as he’d done before, Egidijus snapped his jab and backed Avanesyan into the ropes. He teed off at this point and threw successive bombs to the head. At the 1:55 mark, referee Tony Weeks stepped into stop the action.

Additional Results from Reno

Shakur Stevenson UD 8 Juan Tapia - Featherweight

Alex Besputin TKO 5 Wesley Tucker - Welterweight

Bryant Jennings TKO 3 Akhror Muralimov - Heavyweight

Robson Conceicao UD 6 Ignacio Holguin - Featherweight

Sagadat Rakhmankulov TKO 5 Noel Esqueda - Junior Middleweight