By Jeff Aranow: WBA World lightweight champion Jorge Linares (44-3, 27 KOs) totally outclassed Mercito Gesta (31-2-2, 17 KOs) in handing him his 2nd career defeat on Saturday night in beating him by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision on HBO Boxing After Dark at the Forum in Inglewood, California. The official scores were 118-110, 117-110 and 118-110.
(Photo Credit: Tom Hogan – Hogan Photos/Golden Boy Promotions)
Gesta gave a good effort in the fight in being competitive with Linares though the entire fight, but he just wasn’t letting his hands go until the final 3 rounds of the fight. By that point it was way too late for Gesta to have a chance of winning short of scoring a knockout, which wasn’t going to happen due to his lack of punching power.
Linares, 32, looked like he faded down the stretch in rounds 10, 11 and 12. Gesta was able to come on during those rounds to land some big shots. It wasn’t enough.
Linares picked off many of the southpaw Gesta’s best shots in the first 9 rounds. He was able to block them and counter with 4 and 5 punch combinations. When the two fighters were in a clinch, Linares would often open up with blistering fast left and right and combinations in hitting Gesta repeatedly with big shots.
Linares eased off or gassed out after the 9th. The fight was in the bag at that point. It was the same thing we saw with Linares in his last fight against Luke Campbell. Linares built up a lead and then took it easy on Campbell and let him get back into the fight.
About the best thing you can say about Gesta tonight is he took Linares’ hard punches without getting hurt. But the fight was really one-sided. Linares had too much class for the limited Gesta.
Linares suffered a cut over his right eye in the 8th. That cut could delay Linares’ next fight against WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia. Linares will need wait until the cut is fully healed before he can face Mikey in a unification fight later on.
Gesta’s stock goes up with this defeat, because he showed that he could hang in there and be competitive despite losing a one-sided decision. This was a much better performance from Gesta in his previous title challenge in 2012 against former IBF World lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez.
Gesta was really clowned in that fight by Vazquez from start to finish. It was the wrong opponent for Gesta at the time, and he wasn’t ready to challenge for a world title at that early stage of his career. Gesta’s promoters at Top Rank didn’t do him any favors in putting him in with such a good fighter at that point.
