By Scott Gilfoid: Fighting for a world title for the second title in his 12-year pro career, #1 WBC Kevin Mitchell (39-2, 29 KOs) is confident he’ll have his hand raised in victory on Saturday night when he challenges WBC lightweight champion Jorge Linares (38-3, 25 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London, UK.
Mitchell, 30, will have the hometown advantage due to the fight taking place in the UK rather than Linares’ home in Tokyo, Japan. It’s going to be awfully tough for Mitchell though because Linares is arguably much better than Ricky Burns, a fighter that crushes Mitchell in just 4 rounds in 2012 in the last time that Mitchell challenged for a world title.
Mitchell has done well in turning his career around since the loss to Burns, in winning his last six fights. He beat Ghislain Maduma and Daniel Estrada in his last two outings. The Maduma fight was a very difficult one for Mitchell because he was getting totally dominated for the first 10 rounds until Maduma ran out of gas in the 11th round and was stopped.
If not for Maduma fading in that fight, Mitchell would have surely lost. The thing is all Maduma would have had to do in order to win was stay on his feet and play keep away in the last two rounds. Instead of fighting defensively, Maduma traded with the desperate Mitchell and the end result was an 11th round stoppage loss.
“It’s going to be a good scrap. It’s going to be a good tear up out and it’s going to be entertaining,” Mitchell said via Skysports.com. “It’s going to be what the fans want. It’s going to be a good show. I’m thinking that my main thing is to get the job done; that’s what I’ll be doing. Capitalizing and getting the job done. I’m going to rock the gaff, you watch.”
I don’t know if Mitchell will be able to get past Linares. This is a considerable step up from the guys that Mitchell has been beating recently, and Linares has the far better boxing skills of the two in my estimation.
To be sure, Linares fell apart in his losses to Juan Carlos Salgado, Antonio DeMarco and Sergio Thompson, but those are good punchers and anyone could lose to those guys. Linares has since won his last seven fights, and looked sensational.
In Linares’ last three fights, he’s beaten Javier Prieto, Ira Terry, and Nihito Arakawa. That’s a pretty formidable bunch right there. I’d like to see how Mitchell would do against that wrecking crew.
Linares hits hard and he’s a great ring technician. If Mitchell tries to come in the front door with a primitive caveman type attack on Saturday, I see Linares clowning him and giving him a thrashing he won’t soon forget. If Mitchell wants to beat a talent like Linares, he’s going to need to use some finesse, and some expertise because you can’t use primitive attacks against a guy as good as Linares.
I see Mitchell’s hometown advantage actually working against him in this fight because he’s going to try harder to mix it up with Linares in order to please the cheering fans, and this is going to result in Mitchell getting nailed cleanly with some big shots. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Linares scores a stoppage after Mitchell tries something foolish in the ring.
Mitchell has a cut on his nose that he suffered during sparring that has to be a concern. He tried to make light of it, but that cut is obviously going to be an issue because it’s going to open up almost immediately and we’re likely going to see the red kroovy pouring from the cut before long.
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