By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Filipino featherweight champion Jeffrey Onate suffered a devastating first round knockout against undefeated featherweight Jorge Linares, the 20 year old Venezuelan, in a terrible mismatch in Tokyo Saturday night.
The Japan-based Linares who is managed by influential businessman Akihiko Honda who was also the promoter of the fight card, last September 25 sent a badly battered Ayon Naranjo to hospital where there were concerns he may have had to undergo brain surgery but luckily the Filipino recovered.
Filipino ring idol Manny Pacquiao who watched Linares batter Naranjo himself branded it a mis-match and said the young featherweight was a fine prospect.
Known as the “Golden Boy” who is being touted as a future world champion Linares is ranked No. 3 both by the WBC and the WBA. He put the ageing Onate away for the full count with a perfectly-time right hand at 1:59 of the very first round. It was Onate’s fourth successive defeat and given what happened to Naranjo, there are serious questions being raised over why Onate was in a clear mismatch against the hard-hitting and talented Linares.
Linares moved to 19-0 with 12 knockouts while Onate dropped to 31-22-7 with 16 KO’s.
Well-known Japanese journalist and matchmaker Joe Koizumi quoted Honda as saying Linares will “have a title shot within this year and win the belt.”
