Campbell looked terrific and against anyone less accomplished than Jorge Linares, he would have won the fight?
Saturday night at The Forum in Inglewood, California, reigning and defending WBA, WBC Diamond, and Ring Magazine lightweight champion Jorge Linares (43-3, 27 KOs), ?El Ni?o de Oro? from Barinas, Venezuela, retained his title via split decision over ?Cool Hand? Luke Campbell (17-2, 14 KOs), the up-and-coming southpaw from Hull, Yorkshire, United Kingdom, after 12 rounds of back-and-forth action.
The final scores were 115-112 and 114-113 in favor of Linares, while one judge had it 115-113 in favor of Campbell.
Linares dropped Campbell and drew first blood in round two, but kudos to Campbell for fighting back and winning the second half of the bout.
?I got off to a rocky start,? said Campbell, ?with a nice clean shot in the second round. I wasn?t dazed. It was just a nice shot that put me on my back.?
Campbell had never been down before. He had also never been cut.
?But from there I outclassed him. I thought I won the fight. I didn?t think he was landing any shots whatsoever and I was landing all the clean shots.?
Linares landed plenty of clean shots. More credit to Campbell if he didn?t feel them.
?I fought very well,? said Linares. ?I?m happy with the fight. We had some trouble but we came out on top. Trust me, I have a great connection with my team and with my trainer, so we worked hard and kept at it. I knew I had to let the dogs out. We want Mikey Garcia next.?
Linares vs. Garcia is a great fight and the sooner it gets made the better. But Luke Campbell looked fantastic and against anyone less accomplished than Jorge Linares, he would have won the fight.
Campbell is a serious fighter and some serious money awaits him. It?s only a matter of time before he has a world championship belt to go along with his Olympic gold medal.
?A lot of people saw the fight a lot closer than it was because in the last couple of rounds, he was a lot more aggressive and came forward a lot more,? said Linares.
?The only thing he had over me was that he was a very technical fighter, he was very tall and had long arms.
?I had to adjust to his style throughout the fight.?
Adjust Linares did. No one does it better.
?He?s a tough opponent,? said Linares. ?Many people said he was very easy, but for some reason he?s an Olympic champion.?
