Linares is/was legit but he also had weaknesses as obvious and exploitable as the Grand Canyon is large. It was impressive of Lomachenko to fight him and in his first fight at the division, no less. I thought the fight was even until Lomachenko stopped him; Linares certainly showed up. In an assessment of styles, Lomachenko's strengths are not the same that has brought Linares to his knees in the past, I will say that. He beat Linares down proper and in a different yet similarly or greater convincing fashion than others had.
Kinda true. The story however is that the best didn't want to fight him. But who else besides Linares was at 135? Garcia ran to 140 and 147.
Well, Mikey did unify two belts at 135 less than six months ago. While we all maybe thought Mikey was/is the best fighter at 135, on paper resume may not have touted that with the Zlat fight being his only fight at 135 when Lomachenko and Linares were signing on to fight each other.
That's the thing with Mikey; Linares was on the table and Mikey walked away. Mikey chose Lipiniets over Linares. This content is protected The whole thing is so bizarre. Garcia will fight Spence, but seemed reluctant to face Linares or Loma. Heck, there is a long list of top guys Mikey has called out, including Miguel freaking Cotto.
(Sigh), that's not 3.5 inches there amigo. Not even close. This is larger height and size differential and it's not even close: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/APEon3mZgxg/maxresdefault.jpg
Correct, in fact he got offered the Cotto fight, wanted to take it but Robert Garcia insisted on declining it as he was worried that Cotto was too big. Then Ali upset Cotto ... and now Mikey is fighting Spence instead. I think Mikey is willing to take a chance against a bigger guy because he knows that even if he loses he still has the big fights in the lower divisions, whereas if he lost to Loma or Linares that would be it. It's a curious mixture of daring to be great but being concerned about difficult stylistic match-ups in his own division.
