Jorge Linares had a career filled with great fights. One of his last classics was against Kevin Mitchell, one of the most exciting lightweights of the modern era, who refused to go down without a good fight. On a stacked U.K. card that was headlined by Kell Brook stopping Frankie Gavin as well as Lee Selby winning a world title. Linares and Mitchell stole the show with a fight that stands the test of time. The bout was the best of the evening on a Sky Sports pay-per-view.

Linares

What a confusing career Jorge Linares has had. Starting out as ‘a word of mouth’ guy in the sport of boxing being praised as the next superstar in the sport, only for consecutive stoppage losses to Antonio DeMarco for the WBC vacant lightweight world title, followed by a second-round stoppage loss to Sergio Thompson, in which a common trope of Linares’ career would appear. Linares was unable to continue in the fight due to a cut.

Linares is a rare fighter who was overvalued to start and undervalued to finish his career. Linares had rebuilt his career and won the WBC lightweight world title over Javier Prieto. His first defense of the belt was in the U.K. against Mitchell in a fight in which both fighters would hit the canvas. Linares would go down in the fifth and Mitchell was cut bad and dropped in the tenth which led to the fateful TKO stoppage.

After this fight, Linares would travel to the U.K. twice to defeat Anthony Crolla and fend off Luke Campbell, before being in another classic with Vasiliy Lomachenko which saw him inevitably get stopped. Linares has continued since, but his run in the middle of the 2010s was personified by his performance against Kevin Mitchell

Mitchell

If boxing had a hall-of-very-good, Kevin Mitchell would be a first-ballot inductee. The lovable slugger from the United Kingdom was stopped in all four of his losses but is best remembered for fighting back and not going out without a whimper. Mitchell had the courage that many tunes in to see in the sport of boxing.

To this point, Mitchell had a theme to his career. Get by the regional-level talent, and lose to the very best in the world. As Mitchell was stopped by Michael Katsidis when he fought for the interim WBO lightweight world title, and two years later was stopped by Ricky Hatton for the WBO lightweight world title.

Heading into the Linares fight it was tempered hopes for Mitchell, who fought the fight of his life, and almost pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the decade. A classic example of the experience both fighters learned from the past paved their future, as Mitchell had grown from his previous title fights, and Linares was unwilling to be stopped as he had been in his two previous losses.

After this fight, Isamel Barroso, who recently fought Rolando Romero on Showtime Championship Boxing, knocked out Mitchell in the fifth round. That bout signaled the end of Mitchell’s career.