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David Avanesyan has officially moved on to the next phase of his career.
The streaking welterweight contender landed a premium opportunity to next face WBO titlist and pound-for-pound entrant Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford. The bout will take place on December 10, live on BLK Prime Pay-Per-View from CHI Health Center in Crawford’s hometown Omaha, Nebraska. The tradeoff is having to abandon a previously scheduled November 19 fight with Spain’s Jon Miguez, and with it the EBU (European Boxing Union) title he was due to defend for the sixth time.
“The European title meant a lot to me,” Avanesyan told BoxingScene.com. “We would have loved to do this fight (versus Miguez) and then fight Terence Crawford next. But the opportunity came when it did, so we had to take it.”
The EBU has already ordered a vacant title fight between Miguez (17-0, 8KOs) and France’s Jordy Weiss (29-0, 3KOs), with the two sides granted until November 15 to work out terms before a purse bid hearing is called.
The vacancy was a necessity for Avanesyan (29-3-1, 17KOs), who enjoyed the boxing equivalent of hitting the lottery with the chance to fight Crawford (38-0, 29KO). The development came together in less than 48 hours, in fact at a point when Avanesyan was preparing for the stretch run of his training camp to face Miguez.
Crawford’s team reached out to his side—headed by manager Neil Marsh—as he began to drift from talks for a targeted superfight with WBA/WBC/IBF welterweight champ Errol Spence (28-0, 22KOs). News eventually broke late last Thursday (October 20) of Crawford instead defending his title against Avanesyan, who brings a six-fight win streak into the biggest fight of his career.
It comes at the cost of leaving behind the belt and the wins that came with it to help arrive at this point.
Avanesyan won the EBU title in March 2019, coming from behind to stop unbeaten Kerman Lejarraga in the ninth round on the road in Bilbao, Spain. The Armenian-Russian boxer—who now trains in the United Kingdom—returned to Spain for his first two defenses, both ending in first-round knockout with a repeat win over Lejarraga and a 126-second blitzing of Jose del Rio in Barcelona.
The wins—particularly his first over Lejarraga—helped turn around Avanesyan’s career, which was in a tailspin following a knockout loss to then-unbeaten Egiidijus Kavaliauskas in February 2018. The fight took place in Reno, Nevada, marking his second defeat in exactly 52 weeks following a twelve-round decision to Lamont Peterson in Cincinnati, Ohio. One more defeat would have rendered his career irrelevant, if not entirely finished.
“I remember before I won it—the first fight with Kerman Lejarraga, a lot of people didn’t think I could win. I even told myself, ‘I know I will win but if I don’t, maybe I don’t fight again.’ I gave everything for that fight. After that fight, my career changed. It began my new career.
“I defended it five times. I had good times, good wins. But now we have this big opportunity. It was (a no-brainer).”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox