By Mark Eisner: Light welterweight contender Jack Catterall (28-1, 13 KOs) used his size advantage to box his way to a one-sided twelve round unanimous over former three-division world champion Jorge Linares (47-9, 29 KOs) on Saturday night at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool.

The scores were 117-111, 116-112, and 116-112.

Linares was hurt by a left hand from Catterall in the fifth round, which caused him to stagger back against the ropes. However, Catterall failed to finish the job.

From rounds six through twelve, Catterall used his size to outbox the cautious 38-year-old Linares to cruise to victory.

After the fight, Catterall & promoter Eddie Hearn made it clear that they wanted Josh Taylor next.

We’ll be giving live boxing results below of tonight’s Catterall vs. Linares card.

Super bantamweight Peter McGrail (8-0, 5 KOs) overcame a slow start to turn it on in the second half to defeat previously unbeaten Colombian Fran Mendoza (17-1, 7 KOs) by a ten round unanimous decision. The scores were 99-91, 99-91, and 97-93. The 27-year-old Liverpool native McGrail, who Eddie Hearn believes is capable of being a multi-division world champion someday, struggled early against Mendoza. The southpaw McGrail was getting nailed frequently by Mendoza in the first five rounds, but in the second half, he took over. Mendoza wore down in rounds seven through ten, and stayed on the move, trying to keep from getting chopped apart by McGrail. All in all, it was a good performance from McGrail and showed a good engine. He needs more power for him to compete with the top guys in the division.
Unbeaten bantamweight prospect Jack Turner (3-0, 3 KOs) destroyed Tanzanian journeyman Adam Yahaya (23-11-2, 12 KOs) in a first round knockout. The 21-year-old Turner threw a storm of shots, ending with a left that put Yahaya down. The fight was then halted by referee Mark Lyson at 2:27. The victory was Turner’s third consecutive first round knockout. Turner had a crowd of supporters that showed up to cheer him to victory over the 33-year-old Yahaya.
In a surprise, super featherweight Reece Belloti (17-5, 14 KOs) kept his career alive with an eighth round stoppage victory over previously unbeaten Aqib Fiaz (12-1, 1 KOs). The 32-year-old Belloti knocked Fiaz down with a left to the head in the eighth and then flurried on him with nonstop shots, causing his corner to throw in the towel. The referee Mark Lyson, ignored the towel, but in between rounds, he spoke with Fiaz’s corner, and they informed him they wanted the contest stopped. The official time was at 3:00 of round eight.
Light welterweight prospect Khaleel Majid (12-0, 4 KOs) destroyed journeyman Tom Farrell (21-8, 5 KOs) in a sixth round knockout in a scheduled eight round fight. The 26-year-old Majid dropped the 33-year-old Farrell once in the fifth and twice more in the sixth round with body shots. Referee Steve Gray stopped the fight after the second knockdown in the sixth round after Farrell was flattened with a hard left to the body from Majid. The time of the stoppage was at 2:33 of round six. It was interesting that Farrell failed to make adjustments in his game to avoid fighting Majid on the inside despite it being clear that he was no match for him. In hindsight, Farrell would have been better if he’d kept it long, but he couldn’t resist mixing it up in close. He was landing many shots on Majid, but he couldn’t handle the return fire to the body. Majid looks pretty good on offense, but he’s going to need a lot of work for him to compete with the killers at 140 in the upper tier of the division. What we saw from Majid tonight, he would be easy work for top-level guys like Arnold Barboza Jr., Gary Antuanne Russell, Jose Ramirez, Ryan Garcia, and Richardson Hitchins.

Jack Catterall will be trying to prove tonight that he’s got the talent to progress to the next level for some of the mouth-watering fights when he takes on former three-division world champion Jorge Linares in the main event at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool. The action starts at 2:00 p.m. ET on DAZN.

Linares (47-8, 29 KOs) has been going through hard times lately, losing his last three fights, but he’s hoping to turn things around against British fighter Catterall (27-1, 13 KO), who some feel is little more than a fringe contender at 140 and more suited to fighting on the domestic-level.

Obviously, the 38-year-old Linares was a much better talent than Catterall when he was younger, but he’s not the young, spry chicken he once was, and he could be vulnerable to losing to the 30-year-old.

“I’m calling out Jack Catterall. You want Josh Taylor, and you want the winner of Haney vs. Prograis. Give me something,” said Eddie Hearn to Boxing Social. “Give me that performance where the world says, ‘We want it.’

“Peter McGrail, you’re fighting a 17-0 kid. Give it to me, smash him to pieces. Show me how great you are. We need to be hard with our match-making and not be worried about losing a fighter to another platform or another promoter, which we’ve done in the past because you end up giving them easy fights that no one cares about. So, it’s time for change.

“We have an excuse now. For all the people moaning about Misfits. ‘It’s terrible, it’s going to ruin boxing.’ Shut up; it has nothing to do with boxing.

“It doesn’t take any money off the table for fighters, for promoters, and for networks. It’s another world, but if we don’t get it right in boxing, the bigwigs for these platforms will look at Misfits, which is a lot cheaper, by the way.

“I have fighters that you don’t even know their names, who are in fights that they can’t lose, that are in fights that they’re making twice as much as Salt Papi and Slims combined. What I’m saying is, we make value for money, and the way we do that is by making great fights,” said Hearn.