Jorge Linares/Antonio DeMarco - What a fight!

Rocky Juarez has fought Humberto Soto, Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez, Chris John, Jason Litzau, etc. It's hard for me to believe that any serious Boxing fan could forget Rocky Jaurez's name.

 

This content is protected

 

Jorge Linares was fighting a decent but not great opponent in Antonio DeMarco. A special talent would have showed a greater ability to defend themselves, and would have thought twice about getting into exchanges whilst their vision was compromised.

 

Linares' meltdown in the 11th was just weird. His nose was probably broken, he was a complete mess, so he gets tagged and decides to trade, even though he hasn't hurt DeMarco once!?

What a weirdo. He could have just got on his bike, jabbed and kept DeMarco turning. Instead he wades on in and gets battered. It was the most awful set of tactics to adopt when he was comfortably ahead.

It made for a thrilling end, but showed up that Linares is too small at 135 and not good enough to beat the best.

 

Fighting instincts coupled with Ring I.Q have seen many fighters come through worse against better fighters than DeMarco. One obvious example is many of Jorge Arces best wins

Jose Napoles cut badly and lost a few big fights because of it, but was only ever in bad boxing shape once from it, in his final fight. He had to be pulled out because of the state of him, not because he was being battered because he couldn't come through it.

Juan Diaz is a recent example of fighters that fell to bits when cut, but saying 'not even talent can pull you through' is saying that looking flashy is 'talent' and the ability to make adjustments or grit your teeth isn't 'talent'

 

Personally I was just greatful too see an entertaining fight, Both these fighters had fallen off my radar over the past year or so and was good too see them on british screens again. Linares boxed superbly for 10 rounds but ultimately couldn't cope with the amount of blood streaming down his face. A rematch would be widely accepted as this one threatened to turn into a classic at times.

 

Couldn't cut it against Diamante though.

 

You forget that I'm a Mijares fan. And also why I said Arce wins and not fights ;-)

Being stopped on cuts isn't rare, but getting battered to a stoppage because you've been cut is a worrying trait. Linares was a state don't get me wrong, but as others have said, he should've found a way through it. There was many things he could've done to avoid getting stopped, he did the exact opposite

Yeah, major major talent is Linares.

 

I'd prefer to see DeMarco step it up a notch and get shown his level, and Linares, well, he'll get another soft one next no doubt, a few patsys, then inevitably fall short again.

 

Linares should've watched Cotto Vs Clottey.

 

Watched the fight today knowing the result and at the end of the 10th I was thinking how the hell does he manage to screw this up? He looked completely in control and the cut had in some ways liberated him to produce some nice fluent boxing.

Disappointing the way he threw that away. He's been knocked out cold now early doors and been worn down late on, so it doesn't bode well. Shame, I thought the Larios performance marked him out as something special. It reminded me of the recent Guerrero-Katsidis fight in the way he defused a hardened volume puncher.

 

Linares is obviously talented. As I say, he's a wonderful offensive fighter. Impressive handspeed, nice punch variety, and his combinations are very pretty but just how effective were they? DeMarco wasn't deterred by any of them at any point during the fight. In fact, DeMarco seemed to do his best work immediately after getting tagged. "Some more of this soft stuff, please".

The problem is, Linares is getting found out even before he has stepped up to truly world class level. Okay, the title was on the line, but DeMarco isn't the best the Lightweight division has to offer. Can you imagine what a Rios would do to Linares? The Mexican would laugh those pretty combinations off all night.