Kevin Mitchell wants rematch against Jorge Linares

By Boxing News - 06/04/2015 - Comments

mitchell4356(Photo credit: Sumio Yamada) By Scott Gilfoid: After getting whipped last Saturday night by WBC lightweight champion Jorge Linares (39-3, 26 KOs) in getting stopped in the 10th round, #1 WBC Kevin Mitchell (39-3, 29 KOs) wants an immediate rematch against the 29-year-old Linares so that he can have a chance of redemption.

It’s unclear why Mitchell feels he deserves a rematch considering that he was beaten to a pulp by Linares and legitimately stopped, but that’s what Mitchell wants. Surprisingly, Mitchell was ahead on two of the judges’ scorecards by the scores of 88-82 and 86-84 at the time of the stoppage. The other judge had it knotted up at 85-85.

Mitchell’s promoter Eddie Hearn says the fight was going to be stopped at the end of the 10th, and it would have gone to the cards where he feels Mitchell would have won due to his lead.

Usually when a fighter gets knocked out, as Mitchell did, there’s no reason to have an immediate rematch. I mean, it’s not as if there was any controversy or anything. Mitchell lost the fight by a stoppage, period. I think the other lightweight contenders deserve a shot at Linares’ WBC title rather than Mitchell getting another world title shot off the back of a knockout loss. I’m just saying.

You get knocked out and you’re supposed to go the end of the line, aren’t you? This isn’t Paul Smith vs. Arthur Abraham where Smith loses the fight, complains 24/7 about the decision, and then is magically given a rematch.

Mitchell got blasted out by Linares, so I don’t see why there would be any reason for a rematch. If Mitchell wants a rematch, he should fight his way back into the top spot by beating the likes of Rances Barthelemy, Miguel Vazquez and Ivan Redkach. If Mitchell beats those guys, then I say he should get a rematch with Linares, but not before that.

“I’ve heard they are very good. I’ve not spoken to Eddie at this stage, only my trainer and manager Tony Sims and he said there is a good chance that we’re going to be getting it back on,” Mitchell said to Skysports.com about a rematch with Linares. “Hopefully we can get that rematch.”

If there is a rematch between Mitchell and Linares, the fight needs to take place outside of the UK, because Linares already beat Mitchell once in the UK despite Linares being the champion. It would look really bad if Linares has to keep going to the UK to accommodate Mitchell after knocking him out each time. It would look really bad I think.

“I was beating him at his own game; that was the best thing,” Mitchel said. “I was boxing, I weren’t really attacking.”

I hate to rain on Mitchell’s parade, but he wasn’t out-boxing Linares as he suggests. Mitchell was missing over and over again with wild left hooks, and looking very clumsy. If you call that out-boxing Linares then that’s disturbing. Linares was winning every round on my scorecard, and the only round I had him losing was the 5th, when Mitchell landed a left elbow to the head of Linares, sending him to the canvas. I wasn’t surprised that Linares hit the deck because Mitchell’s elbow clearly hit him smack dab in the face. But Linares got to his feet and continued to out-box Linares the remainder of the fight.

The Linares-Mitchell fight was way too one-sided for my tastes for there to be a rematch. The scores for the fight were laughable, especially the 88-82 score by Ian John-Lewis. That was just a sad, sad score.



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