By Scott Gilfoid: WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia (36-0, 30 KOs) wants a unification fight this summer against WBA World lightweight champion Jorge Linares (42-3, 27 KOs) in the U.S. Garcia saw Linares put on a masterful performance last Saturday night in taking Anthony Crolla (31-6-3, 13 KOs) in their rematch in front of 13,000 boxing fans at the Manchester, Arena in Manchester, England. Linares looked great in the first 7 rounds of the fight.
After Linares knocked Crolla to the canvas in the 7th round with a big left uppercut, the fight was a lot more competitive in the last 5 rounds. Crolla started to pressure Linares, and had him looking worried at times. Linares still dominated the fight, but he wasn’t nearly as good as he was in the first 7 rounds. You could see that Linares wasn’t comfortable with being pressured continuously by Crolla.
Linares knocked Crolla down en route to winning a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 118-109 118-109 and 118-109. The fight was even more one-sided than the previous Linares-Crolla fight that took place last September in Manchester. That was a fight that Linares fought with just one hand because of him injuring his right hand early in the bout. Linares was much better last Saturday night in hitting Crolla at will with his jab and power shots. Linares mostly used his left hand to hit Crolla with uppercuts that he had no defense for.
In hindsight, Crolla shouldn’t have taken the rematch with Linares, because it was never going to end up well for him. Crolla should have gone in another direction towards a fight against WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan. It was an opportunity lost by Crolla. Now he’s got 2 straight defeats on his resume, and he’s got to rebuild his floundering career.
“Congratulations to Jorge,” Garcia said to Showtime Boxing. “He didn’t get cut. I don’t see him injured, so I think we can get to work and maybe fight this summer. He looked great. He obviously performed better than on the first night. This time he out-boxed Crolla a lot easier, showed skill, showed flexibility, moving around the ring, combinations, dropped him with that uppercut,” said Mikey Garcia.
Linares, 31, wants to fight in the U.S in his next match against a top name. It’ll be up to him and his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions. They’re pretty careful in who they match their fighters against, so I’m not sure if they’ll give a green light to a fight between Linares and a talent like Mikey. It’s not the best match-up for Linares on paper, because he does not do well against punchers. Mikey is like an unstoppable machine right now, and Linares doesn’t have the kind of chin needed for him to beat him in my opinion. If it were just boxing, I would favor Linares to beat Mikey. That’s not what Mikey would be focusing on. He would wait on landing one big punch every now and then to try and knockout Linares. I suspect that Linares would get nailed with a big knockout blow sooner or later.
If Linares chooses not to face Mikey, he can still go in the direction of facing someone like WBO champion Terry Flanagan. I think that would be a better match-up for Linares, as he’s got the boxing ability to win a decision over Flanagan. It wouldn’t be easy though, because Flanagan looks like a big welterweight after he rehydrates for his fights. Linares would need to use a lot of movement to have a good chance of beating Flanagan.
“I think it would be a great, great fight with me. I look forward to that. He didn’t get cut. I don’t see him injured, so I think we can get to work and maybe fight this summer,” said Mikey about Linares.