By: Henry Deleon
On Friday January 18th there is going to be an exciting night of boxing at the Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden. Demetrius Andrade vs. Artur Akavov for Andrade’s WBO middleweight title will headline the show. Also on the card will be the sensational Jorge Linares as he will be taking on Pablo Cesar Cano in a 10 round Junior welterweight bout. Linares last fight at Madison square Garden was against Vasyl Lomachenko in where they both put on an outstanding performance.
During the final Andrade/Akavov Press Conference at the Dream Hotel in NYC Boxing insider had the honor of catching up with Jorge Linares head trainer Jorge Zerpa.
Boxing Insider- Jorge, how are you?
Jorge Zerpa – I’m doing well. Very excited to be here. it’s my second time here in NY. I find the city so impressive. This city with the sky scrapers is so beautiful, the people here we’ve encountered even are great, everything’s been great!
Boxing insider – How do you see Linares for this fight?
Jorge Zerpa – We’ve had 3 months focused on this training camp, we’ve had sparring with 3 guys who have similar styles to Cano. One guy with velocity, the other guy who would come at him so Linares could work on moving around and not getting caught, and the other guy was someone who was able to withstand Linares punches. We did a good job on planning out this training camp. We hope come January 18th Linares feels reborn and that the fans end up in awe when they see him perform. Then maybe they would understand that Linares was just having a bad night when he faced Lomachencko last year.
Boxing insider – What do you think will be the key factors for victory for Linares?
Jorge Zerpa – In this fight he has come out and do what he does. He needs to be the technician that he is and try to do what we did in the gym in preparation for this fight.
Boxing Insider – In your opinion what could have Linares done differently in the Lomachenko fight last year to have come out victorious?
Jorge Zerpa – The first thing should have been planning out a well thought out training camp. Taking that plan to the gym, to the track and to the mountains. Then half way to the fight do a sufficiency test, in my country we call it Pre-combat, in where il see if he’s ready to fight, what he’s missing and see if we need to step it up in training or bring it down some. Once he surpasses all that I know he would of been ready and have his hand raised at the end of the fight.
Boxing Insider – What would you say stands out most of Linares as a fighter?
Jorge Zerpa – His responsibility. His hunger. If you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t know he was a 4-time world champion. That’s how hungry he is. And most importantly he listens, he listens to whatever I tell him to do he never complains. So that’s good. Right now, he’s at weight, we had no problem making weight. Today all were going to do is just move around a bit more so he can eat and that’s it. We made weight and now we’re just waiting for January 18th to put on a show.
Boxing Insider – Let’s talk about a fantasy match up. Out of all the boxers in history who would you have liked to see Linares go up against?
Jorge Zerpa – With the work we have done in this training camp, Linares can go up against anybody! But let me take advantage of this opportunity and challenge Lomachenko and his team. Give us a rematch, and I can assure you this time around Lomachenko the outcome will be different you hear me? The world has seen the Canelo/ GGG rematch and now my country Venezuela and the rest of the world wants to see the rematch of Jorge Linares and Vasyl Lomachenko. Let’s make it happen.
Jorge Zerpa is veteran of the sport. He has had numerous champions under him including the late Venezuelan World Champion Edwin Valero. Jorge Zerpa looks to help Jorge Linares make a statement come Friday night when he takes on Pablo Cesar Cano in what will be an exciting night of boxing! You can also catch the fights live on DAZN January 18th 2019.