By Jim Dower: Lightweight contender Jorge Linares (31-2, 20 KO’s) will give it a second shot against Antonio DeMarco (27-2-1, 20 KO’s) in their scheduled July 7th rematch at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California. Linares, 26, first has to get by his next opponent Sergio Thompson (21-2, 19 KO’s) later this month on March 31st at the Oasis Hotel Complex in Cancun, Mexico.

That should be no problem for Linares, as Thompson, a super featherweight, has been fighting 2nd and 3rd tier opposition his entire career and he’ll be badly overmatched against Linares.

Linares, #2 WBA, #2 WBC, was stopped in the 11th round in his last fight by DeMarco last October in a fight for the vacant WBC lightweight title. Linares was cut on the bridge of his nose and the cut bled constantly and towards the end of the fight, Linares suffered an additional cut on the right side of his eye that made matters worse for him. But the cuts weren’t really why Linares fell apart in the 11th round.

What got to Linares was the nonstop pressure from DeMarco. Linares simply couldn’t withstand DeMarco’s constant bombardment of punches and eventually he was hit with a big left hand to the head in the 11th that hurt him badly. Linares then retreated to the ropes and was hit with a series of shots that ended with the referee stepping in to stop the fight. Linares simply crumbled and it’s not surprising because the fight turned around in the 2nd half due to the tough DeMarco’s nonstop pressure. In the first half of the fight, Linares looked good, throwing combinations and showing big speed advantage. However, he must have been unnerved by the fact that DeMarco wasn’t hurt or slowed down in the least by his shots and just kept coming forward looking to land his shots.

Ideally, you’d like to see Linares get in more than one tune-up fight before taking on DeMarco again because he’s got a lot of things to work on in his game before he faces DeMarco again and he won’t get the chance to fix those problems by the time he steps into the ring with him.