Antonio DeMarco vs Jorge Linares

A deficit of eight points on two scorecards and nine on the third was overturned with only 28 seconds remaining in the eleventh round. Antonio DeMarco, badly outboxed for much of the contest, stopped Jorge Linares at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on October 15, 2011, to win the vacant WBC lightweight championship. The official time was 2 minutes 32 seconds, and no knockdowns were recorded.

The match was chief support to Bernard Hopkins’s light-heavyweight title defence against Chad Dawson and was watched by an announced crowd of 8,431. Linares, a former featherweight and super-featherweight champion, entered with 31 victories and one defeat. Since his unexpected first-round loss to Juan Carlos Salgado in 2009, the Venezuelan had won four successive contests and appeared restored to his former position. DeMarco came in at 25-2-1. He had previously challenged Edwin Valero for the WBC lightweight title, retiring after nine rounds, but had rebuilt with three victories. Linares weighed 135 pounds and DeMarco 134. The purses were reported as $100,000 for Linares and $50,000 for DeMarco.

Linares established command from the first round. He was quicker in hand and foot, working behind a fast jab and following it with short, accurate combinations. DeMarco, a tall southpaw, attempted to measure him with the right jab and straight left, but Linares moved his head well and seldom remained in place long enough for a return. His left hook and straight right repeatedly found the target, and by the third round a swelling had begun to develop beneath DeMarco’s left eye.

The pattern continued through the fourth and fifth. Linares controlled the centre when he wished, stepped around DeMarco’s lead foot and varied his attack between head and body. DeMarco landed occasional right hands and uppercuts, but he was being beaten to the punch and could not establish a steady rhythm. Linares’s combinations were shorter and faster, often arriving in groups of three or four before the Mexican could answer. The first five rounds went to Linares on all three official cards.

DeMarco made his first substantial advance in the sixth. He stood closer, allowed Linares less room and began finding him with the straight left and right uppercut. During the round, Linares suffered damage across the bridge of the nose, which bled persistently. Linares later maintained that a clash of heads had broken the nose, although the contest continued without a foul ruling. DeMarco had his best round to that point, but Linares recovered his command in the seventh by returning to the jab, moving laterally and striking in combinations.

A further cut appeared near Linares’s right eye in the eighth. Blood was now becoming a serious inconvenience, but it did not immediately reduce his effectiveness. He continued to land the cleaner punches through the ninth and tenth rounds, using his speed to beat DeMarco during exchanges and then moving away. His face was heavily marked and frequently covered with blood, yet he remained well ahead. After ten rounds, judges Marshall Walker and Jerry Cantu had Linares leading 98-92, while Joel Scobie scored it 99-91. CompuBox credited Linares with 216 landed punches against DeMarco’s 97.

DeMarco’s trainer, Romulo Quirarte, told him before the eleventh that only a knockout would save the contest. The challenger responded by increasing his pace and abandoning the measured approach which had failed him. A straight left forced Linares towards the ropes, and a left-right combination renewed the flow of blood from the damaged nose. DeMarco followed with uppercuts and straight punches, keeping Linares under pressure and denying him the time required to reset his feet.

Linares attempted to fight his way clear rather than hold or retreat. He landed several counters and continued throwing combinations, but his punches no longer discouraged DeMarco. The Mexican remained in front of him, striking through and around the guard as the exchanges became increasingly severe. A right hand shook Linares, after which DeMarco landed repeated straight lefts and uppercuts. Linares backed to the ropes with blood covering his face but continued trying to answer.

Referee Raul Caiz Sr. intervened at 2 minutes 32 seconds as Linares sagged along the ropes beneath another series of unanswered blows. The stoppage was properly timed. Linares remained upright, but his defence had broken down, his face was badly damaged, and DeMarco was landing cleanly with little coming back. The result improved DeMarco’s record to 26-2-1 and made him WBC lightweight champion.

Linares had been the superior boxer for ten rounds and landed more than twice as many punches, but DeMarco’s endurance and refusal to become discouraged decided the contest. Linares’s speed, balance and combination punching built an apparently secure lead; DeMarco’s strength, conditioning and late pressure rendered it worthless. On a programme later remembered for the unsatisfactory ending to Hopkins and Dawson, the lightweight contest supplied a complete and decisive result.

I have always viewed this as the fight that exposed both the brilliance and the flaw in Linares. For ten rounds, he boxed beautifully, using quick feet, a sharp jab and fast combinations to make DeMarco look ordinary. The judges had him ahead 99-91 and 98-92 twice. Then he allowed the fight to become something else.

Linares had already been knocked out unexpectedly by Juan Carlos Salgado, but his talent remained obvious. He was smooth, accurate and attractive to watch. DeMarco was less polished, yet his defeat by Edwin Valero had shown his toughness. He understood that losing rounds did not matter if he could keep applying pressure and damaging the man in front of him.

The facial cuts changed everything. Linares continued landing, but DeMarco’s punches were doing greater physical damage. By the eleventh, Linares’s legs had slowed, and he made the mistake of trading instead of holding, turning and buying time. That was poor ring management. When you are comfortably ahead with two rounds remaining, bravery must be controlled by judgement.

DeMarco deserves enormous credit. His corner told him he needed a knockout, and he produced it through fitness, belief and straight punching. He drove Linares to the ropes and kept working until the referee intervened. Linares was the better boxer for most of the night, but DeMarco was the better professional when the fight reached its decisive moment.