Egidijus Kavaliauskas is preparing for a much lower-profile fight Saturday night than he experienced December 14.

The hard-hitting Lithuanian contender concedes that he is a long way from facing Terence Crawford in a welterweight title fight at Madison Square Garden. Kavaliauskas is still confident that he and Mikael Zewski will provide an outstanding action fight in the 10-round main event of a show ESPN+ will stream from a mostly empty MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas.

Kavaliauskas (21-1-1, 17 KOs) will fight for the first time since Crawford defeated him by ninth-round technical knockout. Zewski (34-1, 23 KOs), of Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, has won eight fights in a row since Russia’s Konstantin Ponomarev (34-2, 13 KOs) beat him by 10-round unanimous decision in December 2015 at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas.

“I know he’s a tough guy,” Kavaliauskas told BoxingScene.com. “He’s a fighter. He will be there to fight me. It will be a good fight, an explosive fight. There will be lots of fireworks in there. He’s a guy who likes to bring the fight in the ring. I’m the same way. I like to fight. We’re gonna go at each other hard. It will be a hell of a fight.”

For the 32-year-old Kavaliauskas, who answers to the nickname “Mean Machine,” this fight represents his first step toward inching into title contention again. He was the mandatory challenger for Crawford’s WBO 147-pound crown when he secured that title shot last year.

“I think this fight will help me get higher up in the rankings,” Kavaliauskas said. “Right now, I’m a little bit lower. So, I’ll just, step by step, climb back to the number one spot in the rankings and get another title shot.”

Kavaliauskas succeeded at times with Crawford.

He hit the unbeaten three-division champion with a right hand that left Crawford holding him in the third round. Kavaliauskas also landed more punches on Crawford than any previous opponent in Crawford fights CompuBox has tracked (118-of-391 overall, only 10 fewer than the 128-of-382 Crawford landed).

Crawford (36-0, 27 KOs) knocked down Kavaliauskas once in the seventh round and twice in the ninth. Referee Ricky Gonzalez stopped their scheduled 12-rounder 44 seconds into the ninth round, as soon as Kavaliauskas went to the canvas for the third time.

“This was the first loss in my career, so it was pretty tough,” Kavaliauskas said. “And we was working for this fight for a very long time. I was prepared to become the new champion. That was a kick in the gut, but everything has gone well in this camp. Everything is good.” 

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.