He was scared. He even only held a thread, with two toes that hung on the rope. In the middle of the 5th round, Souleymane Cissokho well believed that his fight against Egidijus Kavaliauskas was going to escape him. Already sent to the carpet for the first time in the 2nd recovery, the Frenchman was affected by an uppercut of the Lithuanian and fell to delay. Against the strings, he slipped between them and almost ended up on the ground. He finally resisted by clinging with his feet and finding his senses.
But he was back to the wall. In the middle of the Malabo congress center, in Equatorial Guinea, where Souleymane Cissokho wanted to “get closer to the Mohamed Ali myth”the French suffered to find solutions to the experienced Kavaliauskas, 36. Smaller, the Lithuanian, who has already fought for the WBO title against Terence Crawford, constantly sought to break the distance to touch Cissokho. Successfully at first.
But the Frenchman was patient, and returned round after Round. Aware that the stake was enormous, with the possibility of becoming the official challenger of the WBC champion of Welters (-66.678 kg) Mario Barrios in the event of a victory, the bronze medalist at the Rio Olympics found its distance and won each round. If the 12th was very tense, the trips of Souleymane Cissokho allowed him to resist. He finally won the unanimous decision (114-112, 115-111, 116-110).
