By Scott Gilfoid: Trainer Joe Gallagher thinks the combination of the crowd noise and the self-belief of WBA lightweight champion Anthony “Million Dollar” Crolla (31-4-3, 13 KOs) will help guide him to victory against former three division world champion Jorge Linares (40-3, 27 KOs) on Saturday night on September 24 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, UK.
Gallagher thinks Crolla is heading towards superstardom if he can get past Linares despite the fact that there are arguably MUCH better fighters in the lightweight division than Linares or Crolla. For starters, you’ve got Mikey Garcia. He’s got one-punch power.
You can get stick Mikey in Crolla’s backyard and I see him knocking him out 100 out of 100 times. You’ve got Robert Easter Jr., a fighter with tremendous punching power. I can’t see Crolla beating him. You’ve got Dejan Zlaticanin, and Terry Flanagan. These are big punchers. I really don’t see Crolla beating either of those guys. Of course, if Crolla never fights any of them, he can call himself a superstar without having to prove himself.
“It’s a tough task. I view Jorge Linares as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world,” said Gallagher to skysports.com. “We’ve got our work cut out but I feel Anthony’s momentum, self-belief, desire and the crowd behind him will see him over the finish line.”
I don’t think the crowd will benefit Crolla in this contest. Linares doesn’t lose his cool when he hears crowds screaming. If Crolla fights harder due to the crowd, then he’ll fight stupid, because the worst thing you can do inside a boxing ring is to be encouraged by the crowd to fight harder. The only thing that leads to is you losing your head and attacking too much.
If you attack a skilled fighter like Linares, then he’s going to punish you with shots. Linares is a thinking fighter, not a primitive that fights on adrenalin from the crowd. Where I think the crowd will help Crolla is by them screaming each time he even looks at Linares wrong. I think the judges will respond accordingly by giving Crolla rounds in which he should be losing. If the judges give Crolla enough of the rounds based on the cheering from his loyal fans in the Manchester Arena, then he’ll win the fight. Yeah, it’ll totally controversial, but we’ve seen Crolla involved in controversial decisions in the past and he didn’t lose sleep over them. Look at Crolla’s first fight against Darleys Perez, his second fight against Derry Mathews and his fight against Gavin Rees. I thought Crolla lost all three of those fights, and yet he was given wins.
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if Anthony pulls this off and you have him and Tyson Fury, both Ring magazine champions, both No 1 in the world in their weight classes and both from Manchester,” said Gallagher. “Here in Manchester we do things a little bit different. Ricky Hatton’s opponents soon found out what the Manchester crowd was all about.”
It’s hard to picture Crolla and Tyson Fury as the Ring Magazine champions if they win their next fights. If Crolla beats Linares, then I don’t see how that makes Crolla the best fighter in the lightweight division. Linares is rated No.1 by Ring Magazine and Crolla No.3. But I think No.2 Dejan Zlaticanin is being skipped over and I don’t think that’s right. I see Linares winning the fight on Saturday night. But if he loses the fight fair and square, I still don’t think Crolla wouild be the best fighter in the lightweight division.
I wouldn’t rank Crolla as the top guy in the division just because he beat an inactive fighter in Linares, who hasn’t fought since 2015 due to injury related problems. For me to give Crolla the top spot in the lightweight division he would need to beat Easter, Flanagan, Mikey Garcia, and Zlaticanin. If Crolla beats all those guys, then you can say he’s the best, but right now, I can’t put him at No.1. Is it asking too much for Crolla to fight and beat Mikey Garcia?
Yeah, I saw the wrestling that Hatton did in his fight against Kostya Tszyu in their fight a decade ago in Manchester; I noticed that Hatton wasn’t penalized for it. I guess you can say that things are done differently in Manchester. I thought Hatton got away with an entire fight’s worth of wrestling against Tszyu. The referee should have taken points off from Hatton at some point, but he didn’t. I’m just saying.