By Ian S Palmer
There’s another world title fight over in Manchester, England this weekend as hometown hero Anthony Crolla will be facing Jorge Linares of Venezuela for Crolla’s WBA World Lightweight Championship. This 12-round bout can be seen live in the UK on Sky Sports and on the AWE network in America on Saturday, September 24th. Crolla last fought in May and stopped Ismael Barroso in the seventh round. Linares fought against Ivan Cano last October and stopped him in the fourth round. Linares is currently the WBC Lightweight Champion.
The 29-year-old Crolla will enter the ring with a record of 31-4-3 along with 12 Kos while the 31-year-old Linares is 40-3 with 27 Kos under his belt. Crolla resumed his career after suffering a fractured skull and broken ankle in an attack a couple of years ago. The boxer heard a commotion in his neighbour’s yard and decided to intervene when it looked like the neighbour was about to be robbed. Since then he’s fought Darleys Perez of Colombia twice with a draw and a win via fifth-round stoppage, then beat Barroso. Crolla captured the WBA Lightweight crown in the second meeting with Perez.
Crolla stands just over 5-feet-8-inches tall and has a 67-inch reach. He turned pro back in 2006 and has gone 227 rounds since then, but doesn’t possess much in the way of power with a current knockout ratio of just 34 per cent. Crolla has four losses on his record against domestic opponents. He drew with Derry Mathews and was beaten by Youssef Al Hamidi and twice by Gary Sykes. In addition, Mathews stopped him in the sixth round back in 2012. However, he’s also fought some decent British opponents such as Andy Morris, John Watson, Willie Limond, Gavin Rees and John Murray. Linares likely represents Crolla’s toughest opponent to date.
Linares has a lot of experience, skill and speed and is a former featherweight and super featherweight world champion. He won his latest belt back on December 30 of 2014 when he stopped Javier Prieto in the fourth round. That bout took place in Tokyo, Japan, which is where Linares now calls his home base and it was for the vacant title. His three losses have come against Juan Salgado in 2009, Antonio DeMarco in 2011 and Sergio Thompson in 2012 and all three men stopped him. Linares’ biggest wins have been over Jesus Chavez, Oscar Larios, Nihito Arakawa and Rocky Juarez.
Linares stands 5-feet-8-inches tall with a 69-inch reach and has fought 244 rounds since turning pro in 2002 and carries a 63 per cent knockout ratio around with him. He definitely has more power than Crolla, but both of them have questionable chins. Linares may also have some ring rust to get through since he hasn’t fought in close to a year now. Crolla needs to use his mobility and slick combinations against Linares since he doesn’t really have the power to slug it out with him and will definitely have the crowd behind him.
Prediction
Linares has more experience against tougher opponents, but is a little older than Crolla. He’s also been stopped in all three of his losses, but Crolla isn’t known as a knockout puncher. Crolla’s biggest asset is his heart and determination and he’s surprised a few people by winning and hanging onto a world title. This is a hard fight to pick due to the intangibles, but Crolla will meet his match sooner or later and it could very well be this Saturday night.
