Lucas Matthysse and Jorge Linares both picked up their expected wins on HBO Saturday night. No one was particularly excited about these fights, however, and certainly no one left the Inglewood Forum feeling any more excited than they came in.
The only thing really unexpected about this card was the bout order. That is likely on me. I never expected Lucas Matthysse (39-4, 36 KOs) and Tewa Kiram (38-1, 28 KOs) to get the main event spot over Jorge Linares (44-3, 27 KOs). Accordingly, I never bothered to look into it. I really don’t understand why either Golden Boy or HBO chose the order that they did either. Jorge Linares has been the far more prominent fighter over the last few years. Plus, Mercito Gesta (31-2-2, 17 KOs) was at least a known opponent. It also isn’t as if either the network or the promoter have super attractive options for Matthysse at welterweight should he have impressed here.
He didn’t impress at all either. This was a downright bad fight to watch. I am not going to give either of these fights an in depth breakdown because neither of them really deserve it. Tewa Kiram did well to establish his jab and neutralize action. He moved and generally tried to stink up the joint. It was working in terms of winning some rounds, but it definitely was failing if the objective was to ever make money in the sport by making people want to watch him again sometime. Lucas Matthysse wasn’t doing much to help the fight either. Sure, he was the aggressor, I guess, but he didn’t seem to be trying that hard and he was completely befuddled by Kiram’s basic jab and slight size advantage.
Thankfully, Lucas Matthysse found a somewhat out of know where eighth round finish. First he caught his Thai foe with a nice one two that sent him down hard on the right hand. After rising and trying to fight back, it was an extremely stiff jab that put Kiram back down. That ended the night. It was a nice finish in a fight with little else nice about it. The power punching Argentinian picked up a secondary version of the WBA belt that Keith Thurman holds with the win. Recent history tells us that eventually the WBA will order those titles “unified,” but that is likely a ways off.
Jorge Linares and Mercito Gesta put on a much more watchable, but ultimately forgettable title fight in the show’s opening bout. Gesta did start pretty well. He also stole a round or two as the fight went along. Even with his minor successes, however, the talent gap here was extremely wide. It really just felt as if the Venezuelan titleholder was simply relaxing in the rounds that his Filipino challenger was finding a little success here and there. When Linares was trying to work his game, he was winning comfortably. The fight wasn’t a disaster in terms of watchability like the main event, but it did at times feel like a sparring session too.
In the end I scored the fight 117-111 for Jorge Linares. One judge agreed and the other two scored it 118-110. The cards seemed fair to me. There are some intriguing options for Jorge going forward now. The fight I think everyone would like to see would be lightweight unification with Mikey Garcia, but it isn’t clear if he will come back down to 135 after two fights now at 140. Vasyl Lomachenko moving up to 135 is also a very attractive fight, but that has promotional issues to sort out. Otherwise, a rematch with Luke Campbell makes a lot of sense. Their first fight was entertaining and competitive. The other titlist at the weight, Robert Easter Jr, are not options. PBC would never make a fight with Jorge Linares as things stand now.
