By Scott Gilfoid: WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan (32-0, 13 KOs) wants to avenge the loss of Anthony Crolla after he defends his title against #2 WBO contender Petr Petrov (38-4-2, 19 KOs) next month on April 8 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. Crolla was whipped by Linares (42-3, 27 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision last Saturday night in their rematch in Manchester. Linares would have a good chance of beating Flanagan. It would be a bad fight for Flanagan in my estimation because he’s slow and easy to hit. The only thing Flanagan has going for him is his size.
It was obvious to me that Crolla was going to be smacked around by Linares the moment the fight was signed, because he wasn’t able to beat him the last time he fought him when he was using just 1 arm due to a hand injury. If Crolla couldn’t deal with Linares with him temporarily limited because of his hand, he sure as heck wasn’t going to beat him when he regained the use of his right hand for the rematch.
Flanagan’s chances of getting a fight against Linares are very, very low in my opinion. Linares is talking about wanting to fight in the U.S against a big name. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he’s talking about WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia, who is from the States. Flanagan isn’t a highly popular fighter despite him possessing the World Boxing Organization lightweight title. Further, Flanagan likely won’t be holding onto his WBO title for too much longer because he’s going to need to face the highly ranked contender Felix Verdejo soon, and few people see him winning that fight.
“I strongly believe Terry would not just beat Linares, but stop him. There is an offer on the desk of ‘Golden Boy’, so that when Terry beats Petrov, Linares can return to Manchester for the unification,” said Flanagan’s manager Steve Wood to fightnews.com.
It would be surprising news for me if Golden Boy Promotions were to choose to have Linares fight a unification fight against Flanagan. I don’t see them doing that. There aren’t a lot of boxing fans that would be interested in a Linares vs. Flanagan fight in the U.S. I’m not even sure that fight sells in the UK.
Flanagan should put his attention on the 34-year-old Petrov, because he may not win that fight. Petrov has won his last six fights since losing a 12 round unanimous decision to Dejan Zlaticanin in 2013. Since that fight, Petrov has beaten Michael Perez, Marvin Quintero and Gamaliel Diaz. Those are all good fighters. Petrov has a real chance of beating Flanagan on April 8. The only guys that have beaten him were quality fighters like Marcos Maidana, Zlaticanin and Vitali Tajbert.
The main thing that Flanagan has going for him is size. He’s basically a light welterweight that fights at lightweight in my opinion. At close to 5’10”, Flanagan is huge for the 135 pound division. He’s also heavy for the division. When Flanagan rehydrates, he looks like a normal welterweight. I just don’t know how Flanagan does it without being weakened.
Flanagan has successfully defended his WBO title 4 times since winning it in a 2nd round injury stoppage over Jose Zepeda in July 2015. There was talk of Flanagan and Zepeda fighting a rematch with Zepeda being healthy, but it never transpired. Flanagan moved on and he’s since beaten Diego Magdaleno, Derry Mathews, Mzonke Fana and Orlando Cruz. Those guys were kind of old to be contenders. Fana is 43 and Cruz 35. It’s unclear why Flanagan is electing to fight older guys when he’s making his voluntary defenses of his WBO title.