Jorge Linares Sets up Potential Superfights with Victory Over Mercito Gesta
By Faisal “Fayz” Masood
Jorge Linares is the current WBA lightweight champion and probably envisioned a bigger start to the year 2018. If you heard he was fighting a Filipino coached by Freddie Roach you would be forgiven for thinking he was being matched with Manny Pacquiao. Instead, in a division whose other champions include one of the world’s best in Mikey Garcia as well as another potential star in Robert Easter Jr, Linares stepped into the ring on the 27th as the co-feature of the night against a little known Filipino named Mercito Gesta.
Gesta is by no means a bad boxer, suffering just 2 defeats in 35 professional bouts, the 30yr old is just not a name you would be expecting to challenge Linares, a man who would feature in many top ten pound for pound rankings. The only real talking point leading up to the fight was more to do with the trainer Freddie Roach. Roach had trained Linares earlier in his career and Gesta believed Roach would conjure up the perfect game plan to negate the silky offence of the Venezuelan champion. Roach for his part had gone on record saying he believed Gesta would win because Gesta could “take his heart” and “make him fall apart.” If Linares needed any motivation to dust off the Christmas and new year’s rust then hearing Roach’s comments would be all he needed to hear. Perhaps Roach was hoping that after an edgy decision win in his last fight against Britain’s Luke Campbell, Linares at 32 was showing signs of maybe slowing down….
As the fight began the Filipino southpaw showed signs the fight could possibly be a close affair but it soon became clear this was only because Linares was feeling out his opponent for the first few rounds and then Linares chose to exert his dominance and took the game away from Gesta. If Gesta wanted to make Linares fall apart by applying pressure then the plan was quickly failing and it was up to Gesta to make sure his defence would not fall apart against the varied offence of the 32yr old champion.
As Gesta continued to plod forward in each round, Linares continued to pepper him with punches in bunches, firing off quick and snappy shots. Linares was not looking for the knockout punch, rather he was occupying Gesta’s defence with his fast combinations, doing just enough to halt Gesta’s forward progress, the clear difference in punching speed between the two was being exposed allowing Linares to build up a sizeable lead on the fight scorecards. As Gesta marched on and on his hands dropped lower and lower, Linares better speed allowed him to take advantage of Gesta’s struggling defense.
As the bout ended and the fight went to the scorecards Linares was announced as the winner with scores of 118-110 (twice) and 117-111 giving Linares his 13th consecutive victory.
Despite the wide margin on the cards, you got the feeling watching the fight that Linares still had an extra level or two to reach if he wanted to dig a little deeper but he never felt forced to, the champion looked as if though he could have quite easily fought another five rounds.
Having given himself a winning start to the year as well the added bonus of proving his former trainer wrong, Linares has now paved the way for some potential superfights later on in the year. No doubt the names of Mikey Garcia and Vasyl Lomachenko are the hottest names on everyones lips. At which weight Linares chooses to fight either of the two is anyones guess for the time being, Garcia recently campaigned at 140lbs and his next fight will also be at this same weight, but he is still the WBC lightweight champion and like Jorge Linares is a three weight world champion. There have been talks between the two in the past but both sides were unable to reach an agreement due to purse demands. With Garcia contemplating fights at weights even higher than light welterweight that means there could be a better chance than Linares fights Vasyl Lomachenko next. Loma is the naturally smaller man when compared to Mikey Garcia so would make a better match for Linares. Although Linares looks to have put to bed the rumours about his chin with a 6yr winning streak, a boxer such as Garcia who is not only a big puncher but a bigger man would be a huge risk.
Lomachenko though would give Linares the opportunity to catapult himself amongst the boxing elite and top five fighters in the world and would undoubtedly be one of the fights of the year. ‘Hi-Tech’ certainly intends upon moving up to lightweight with a date set for April and doesn’t take any easy fights, it is highly possible he makes a fight with Jorge Linares and his promoter Bob Arum has also expressed intrigue at seeing this fight take place. The promoter for Linares, Golden Boy’s Oscar De La Hoya has put the word out for Arum to give him a call to discuss arranging the fight so let’s hope we get to hear some good news on that front.
If Linares is unable to catch either of Mikey Garcia or Vasyl Lomachenko then there is Robert Easter, JR. who is the undefeated IBF lightweight champion. Easter, JR.had a lucky escape in his last outing against Javier Fortuna with a split decision win in a fight where there was more than a fair share of fans believing he had lost. However, Linares would no doubt like to claim another world title and fighting the 5’11 Easter, JR. would still be one to watch with much on the line for both fighters. Watch this space.
Check out Fayz’s available books for download on Amazon. He also runs his own Personal Training site and blog over at Fayz Fitness.
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