By Ryan Burton
On March 8th in Las Vegas, former two-division champion Jorge "El Nino de Oro" Linares won a dominating decision over Nihito Arakawa on the televised pay-per-view undercard of Canelo Alvarez's knockout victory over Alfredo Angulo. Linares was pleased with his performance but felt that he would have done better if he hadn't injured his hand in the fight.
"One of my promoters said that I was at about 70% and that I can do more and I agree with that. Arakawa is a complicated fighter. He likes to lay back and have you attack him. He wouldn't come after us.
"I knew that he would be a tough opponent. I hurt my right hand so that is also why it went so many rounds. I had to use my left hand more than usual but everything went okay and I got the win," Linares explained.
The Venezuelan fought three times in 2013 and hopes that 2014 will be another active year for him. He said that he would like to return in the summer and that he would love to face WBC lightweight champion Omar Figueroa, who was supposed to appear on the card as well but hurt his hand a week prior to the fight.
"I will be ready to fight again in another three or four months and hopefully it will be a big fight. I would love to fight Figueroa. Whenever he wants it we can do it. I am ready when he is ready," Linares told BoxingScene.com.
Send questions or comments to ringsidewriter@gmail.com . You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ringsidewriter