Better debut at their 3rd weight class?

[chrisJS]

McDonnell was his debut at the weight not Payona.





Linares has been all smoke and mirrors his career. Vacating titles to fight light punching Crolla and rematching him and picking up vacant titles. Now he's a monster because Loma beat him. Ok....

Perhaps not a "monster" but a highly skilled boxer who's been around and brought a long win streak into the fight. Inoue hasn't been in the ring with anybody nearly as good as him. His best win is Hernandez. I think Loma has already fought about a half dozen or more better guys than Hernandez. I think Linares has fought better guys than Inoue too. You may ridicule Crolla but he's better than anything Inoue beat.

Inoue isn't even a real champ at 118. He won a secondary belt. I like him a lot and think highly of him too (I have him #4 p4p and he's been in my top 5 for 18 months) but it is what it is.

[Motorcity Cobra]

Linares suffered from the same thing as Gassiev (and loma usyk are suffering too from it, people arent rating the wins as they should). They were in with someone special and it made their greatness appear normal. The fight plan was so good that one mistake would have ended and nearly did for Loma, and they done so well that it made the others look bad. Watch the fights again, watch linares' short steps. There's a reason Loma wasn't sidestepping. There's also a reason usyks movement made a big bear boxer gas halfway through a fight.

I been saying Linares is overrated on this board since before he was even thought of as an opponent for Lomachenko so don't lump me in with the others.

[Vegemil]

Voted for Inoue because his run so far sounds like fiction. Nobody goes up and does that to McDonnell. You also see this confidence in him every time he goes up another weight class. He'll land his first big shot and he'll know he can hurt them.

[boliodogs]

I love them both but it's hard to top a first round brutal KO.

[bballchump11]

Lets not overrate Linares now.