By Scott Gilfoid: Anthony “Million Dollar” Crolla (31-5-3, 13 KOs) will be giving it another try tonight in his rematch against WBA lightweight title holder Jorge Linares (41-3, 27 KOs), but it doesn’t figure to end well for him at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. Crolla already lost to the talented be shaky-chinned Linares last September in losing a 12 round unanimous decision.
This was in front of a legion of Crolla’s diehard boxing fans. They didn’t make one bit of difference in the outcome of the fight, as Linares was immune to the support that Crolla was getting. It’s not surprising to understand why. When you look at Linares’ boxing resume, he’s been road warrior his entire 15-year pro career. It’s the norm for him to go into another fighters’ home territory and beat them.
Crolla’s fans didn’t help him last time, and they won’t help him tonight. That’s how I see it. Crolla is going to be knocked out tonight. I’m predicting that. The best man will win the fight, which is the way it always is unless it’s a controversial decision. Crolla thinks the fans are going to give him energy to defeat Linares. I wish him luck with that pipe dream. If it were someone else that Crolla was facing, then I would agree that the fans would play into the outcome of the fight. But this is the wrong opponent for Crolla to be getting a mental edge against due to crowd noise.
As I’ve mentioned previously, Linares fights better when the fans are making a ton of racket with their yapping. It doesn’t cause Linares to come unglued mentally and start doubting himself. It makes Linares fight with more energy, and the last thing Crolla needs. He’s already up against it in facing a guy with better boxing skills than him. But with Linares fighting with more energy, it’s bad news for Crolla.
” Crolla has got to make Linares uncomfortable, make him miss, make him feel his age,” said Dave Coldwell to skysports.com.
What on earth is Coldwell blathering about? The 30-year-old Crolla is just 1 year younger than the 31-year-old Linares, and he probably has a lot more ring wear on him due to his less than impregnable defense. I think Linares is physically the younger fighter of the two. Neither of these guys are what I would call young, but their pretty much the same age as the top fighters in the light welterweight division right now.
WBC champion Mikey Garcia is about to turn 30. WBO champion Terry Flanagan is nearing 30. None of these guys are what you would call young, but they probably have a good 3-5 years left in the sport. I can see Linares and Crolla hanging around for that long as contenders, but definitely not champions. The division is too good right now.
“I’m going to feed off this energy, feed off the crowd tomorrow night,” Crolla said to Sky Sports News HQ. “If I let it get to me emotions and start playing on that against a sharp counter puncher like Linares, it’s a dangerous thing to do,” said Crolla.
Crolla should try and clear his head of this bit about him drawing energy from the crowd. It’s going to foolish energy that Crolla draws if he tries to use to bum rush Linares to take him out due to him being psyched up by the crowd. This isn’t war. Boxing is more of a thinking man’s sport. Croilla need to think at all times what he’s doing in the ring because if he tries to beat Linares with energy alone, he’s going to get picked apart tonight.
It’ll be embarrassing. Linares sees this as a sport. If his opponent loses his mind because he’s getting energy from the crowd, he’s going to have a field day hitting him at will. We saw what happened to Kevin Mitchell in his fight with Linares when he kept charging at him after getting energized from all the cheering from the London crowd in their fight in 2015. Linares turned Mitchell’s face into a bruised mess, and ended up stopping him in the 10th. The thing is, I think Mitchell was a better fighter than Crolla. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mitchell were to make a comeback and beat Crolla if the two of them fought. Mitchell had problems against some guys, but he did well against light punchers similar to Crolla. Linares made Mitchell look bad, and he was doing the same thing that Crolla was doing last September by rushing Linares like a little bull after hearing his fans cheer him on. I would hope for Crolla’s sake that he can forget about the crowd and use his mind to think the different situations that present themselves in the fight tonight, but I don’t think he will. Everything that Crolla is saying about him wanting to feed of the crowd energy suggests that he’s going to charge straight into the teeth of Linares’ offense all night for as long as the fight lasts.
“Linares loves those two straights and then go down to the body with a lovely left hook, but Ant knows what he does, so anticipating that and catching him with a right will make Linares wary of doing that again,” said Hatton to skysports.com.
Linares does a lot of different things in the ring. Hatton is making Linares sound like he’s a simplistic robot type fighter, who does the same things every time. I don’t see that from him. Linares is impossible to predict because he fights different for every opponent. With Crolla, it was a lot easier for Linares to figure him out and pick him apart because he was always blindingly rushing him looking to land his body shots. Linares was able to stick a jab in his face and move out of the way all night long. Hatton is doing a bad job of predicting what Linares will do tonight.
The only thing I can predict is that Linares will make Crolla pay if he tries to pressure him like he did last time, because he doesn’t use smart pressure. Crolla pressures Linares the way an old time fighter would be coming forward in straight lines leading with his face. Linares picks him apart each time. It’s literally child’s play for Linares.
I think tonight’s fight will come down to Linares taking advantage of Crolla’s stupid mistakes and stopping him well inside the distance. I think the fight ends by the 8th. I can’t see Crolla taking punishment from a healthy Linares for the full 12 rounds. The white towel might be thrown into the ring by Crolla’s corner to save him from taking too much punishment at the hands of Linares tonight.
The loser of tonight’s Linares-Crolla fight has a big decision they’ll need to make with their careers. Do they keep their careers going after they lose or do they hang up the gloves and go in another direction? I don’t think that Crolla can go too much farther because he doesn’t have the technical skills or the power to compete with the top fighters in the lightweight division. Linares has the skills to possibly beat the likes of the top dogs in the division. I’d favor Linares to beat Flanagan. Robert Easter Jr. is a different story. I think he’s got too much size and power for Linares, but you never know. Linares could out-box Easter Jr. and use his experience advantage to get the win.