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By Rob Smith: Well, so much for the July 7th rematch between Antonio DeMarco and Jorge Linares. That fight just went down the tubes tonight with Linares (31-3, 20 KO’s) getting obliterated by the hard hitting but slow of hand Sergio Thompson (22-2, 20 KO’s) in a 2nd round technical knockout defeat at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California.
Thompson dropped Linares with a left-right shot to the head in the 2nd round after flurrying on him with nonstop punches. Linares had been hit with a big right hand before the flurry started and Thompson just unleashed a blizzard of punches that ended with the combination that knocked Linares down. Linares stayed on one knee and looked like he was uncertain about getting up. He eventually did but he was cut above his left eye.
The referee took him over to the ringside doctor and the was immediately halted. Who knows? Some doctors would have likely let the fight continue but it really didn’t matter. Linares was in trouble with Thompson. This guy hit too hard and was tagging him with huge right hands from the 1st round of the fight. Linares wasn’t going to be able to hold up under those kinds of right hands and the barrages of punches that followed them. Thompson would attack in waves where he’s stun Linares with a big right and then follow it with flurries..
Linares was taking big right hands from Thompson in the 1st round but was able to stagger him with a perfectly placed left-right combination late in the round. Thompson backed up with legs looking weak, but Linares didn’t go after him the way he needed to. That was the perfect time for Linares to end the fight but he let Thompson off the hook by throwing a few token jabs and some body shots. Linares may have been wary of going after Thompson for fear of getting hit with another big right hand and a flurry that would follow it. Linares didn’t look confident as if he was dealing with someone that was about to explode on him.
What made this fight an even bigger blow to Linares’ career is that it was a WBC lightweight eliminator bout with the winner getting the fight against DeMarco. Doesn’t look like it’s going to be Linares now, not with this defeat. Linares, who is trained by Freddie Roach, hit the deck in the 2nd round after getting hit with a series of hard shots from Thompson. Linares suffered a cut to the left eye, which led to the fight being stopped at 2:27 of the round.
You have to wonder who gave Linares the brilliant idea to take on the hard hitting Thompson after the serious beat down that Linares experienced last October in a 11th round TKO loss to DeMarco. That was a lot of punishment to take to be back in the ring so soon against an fighter with even better power than DeMarco. If Linares had excellent defensive skills then I could have understood it, but he’s all offense and is so easy to hit.
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Other fights on the undercard:
Marco Antonio Periban TKO 2 Gerardo Diaz
Francisco Vargas TKO 3 Carlos Perez