Jorge Linares had no issue shaking off his loss to Vasiliy Lomachenko from this past May and emerge victorious in his 140-pound debut.
In the main event of Golden Boy Promotions’ latest boxing card streamed exclusively on Facebook, Linares knocked out Abner Cotto in the third round of their fight.
It was a dominant performance by the four-time world champion, who knocked down Cotto twice in the fight before knocking him out in the third round. It started in the second round when Linares landed a right hook to Cotto to knock him down with less than a minute remaining. Linares then took Cotto down with another right hook early in the third round before knocking him out midway through the round.
After the fight, Linares said he feels great fighting at 140 pounds and would love to fight the best boxers in the division. As far as wanting a rematch against Lomachenko, Linares said he would go back down to lightweight for a second crack at the WBA champion. Linares was knocked out by Lomachenko in the 10th round of their fight at Madison Square Garden in May.
"I still want to get this thorn out of my side, which is a rematch with Lomachenko. I recognize that I lost against the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, but I would love to go down to 135 again to fight him," Linares said.
The entire Facebook stream reached a peak viewership of more than 17,000 during the live airing, significantly more than the peak viewership for the first boxing card in the partnership between Facebook and Golden Boy Promotions, which was just under 7,000 viewers. The next Golden Boy on Facebook card will take place on October 13 with the main event being Angel Acosta vs. Abraham Rodriguez for the WBO light flyweight title.
