By Chris Williams: Former two division world champion Jorge Linares (31-3, 20 KO’s) will be trying to save his sinking career on Saturday night in taking on 37-year-old journeyman Hector Velazquez (52-17-3, 35 KO’s) in a 10 round scheduled fight at the Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento, California. Linares has lost his last two fights, getting stopped by Antonio DeMarco and Sergio Thompson.

It’s still a mystery why Linares was matched up against the hard hitting Thompson after having been stopped by Antonio DeMarco in October of last year. Linares took a real beating in the loss to DeMarco, and it was a huge mistake for Linares to be matched up with the dangerous Thompson. Linares, 27, must have felt he could out-box this guy without taking too much punishment, but that wasn’t the case.

Thompson was teeing off on Linares in that fight, knocking him down in the 2nd round. The fight was halted in that round after Linares, not surprisingly, suffered a bad cut on his left eyelid. With all the cuts that Linares suffered in his loss to DeMarco last October, it’s not all that surprising that Thompson would be able to cut him up as well with his big right hand power shots bouncing off Linares’ head.

Linares is still ranked high at #3 WBC in the lightweight division and will be getting another title shot in the near future if he can start winning again.

Beating the 37-year-old Velazquez shouldn’t be a problem for Linares, as he’s lost six out of his last eight bouts. However, Velazquez has still got some power and I wouldn’t advice Linares to try and mix it up with him too often in this fight. Linares has too much scar tissue around his eyes, and Velazquez definitely punches hard enough to break up Linares’ face or just hurt him with his shots.