By Steve Kim
In what was one of the better fights of 2015, Jorge Linares had to climb off the canvas to halt Kevin Mitchell's spirited challenge of his WBC lightweight title last Saturday night in London. Linares stopped the British challenger in ten rounds, after hitting the deck himself in the fifth round.
Now, Golden Boy Promotions plots out the future for the 29-year old Venezuelan.
"We had that little doubt that was always there, everyone knew the talent but could he really be in a rough fight? I think that's been erased," said Robert Diaz, matchmaker for Golden Boy Promotions, who has worked closely with Linares since the company signed him in 2009. In the past, when Linares was floored, it meant impending doom. In this instance he was able to weather the storm at the O2 Arena.
Diaz told BoxingScene.com - "This was a very hostile atmosphere because all 20,000 fans were with Kevin Mitchell. Mitchell came better than he's ever come before. He was really, really determined on winning the fight and Jorge went through some ups and downs during the fight but go through and his confidence is there so we want the biggest fight out there for him in the next fight, this year.
"We're going to sit down with him next week. His baby was born hours before the fight started so he went back home with his wife and his baby. But next week we want to sit down and put him in a good fight."
Diaz expect to see Linares return around September or October and their options are wide open.
"Eddie Hearn already reached out, they want to do a (Mitchell) rematch because it was such a good fight. I said, 'Eddie, I'm not going to rule it out but financially it has to make sense.' Because if you saw the fight, one judge had Jorge down by six points, there was no way in the world. And you saw that they stopped the (Evgeny) Gradovich fight with one little cut, yet Mitchell was swollen, cut, busted up and they weren't going to stop that fight, at all."
There's a very strong likelyhood that Linares performs next on the West Coast.
"Yes, definitely," stated Diaz, who added - ''Miami has been mentioned, as well, because there's a big Venezuelan community. But there's Texas, hey, Juan Diaz and Jorge, maybe."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com