THE JORGE LINARES SAGA - A COMMENTARY
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 16 Oct 2011
Jorge Linares, the gutsy Venezuelan fighter who was billed as an excellent prospect by the Golden Boy Promotions, last night at the Staples Center lost to another good prospect Antonio de Marco of Mexico. The fight was for the WBC Lightweight title.
Linares was the main sparring partner of Manny Pacquiao as the Filipino icon trained in Baguio City Philippines preparatory to his fight with Juan Manuel Marquez on November 12th.
The fight was one that Linares was supposed to win what with the training he had with Freddie Roach, and the conditioning he got from Alex Ariza.
But as fate has it, in spite of leading in the fight, Linares was cut on the bridge of the nose and over the right eye. The injuries from my humble point of view eventually contributed to his defeat.
As an aspiring cutman myself, with only a handful of title fights in my hands, I am not one who would criticize the performance of other cutmen, particularly those who have tons of experiences over me.
But witnessing first hand what happened to Jorge Linares, I can?t help it but think about why it happened and what could have possibly been done to prevent what happened.
Thus, I thought of writing this piece in the hope that it will be taken as a form of constructive criticisms instead of an outright finger pointing. In addition, be rest assured that it is simply meant to help. Nothing more and nothing less.
Linares? cutman was not just anybody. He is Joe Chavez, one of the best there is in the business. In fact, he is Freddie Roach ?go to? guy together with another veteran Miguel Diaz. These are guys I look up to.
But for some reason or another, tonight was not Chavez? best night. He had a hell of a time controlling the bleeding cuts of Linares.
Chavez is a very experienced cutman that is why I was flabbergasted as to what happened in Linares? corner. As I watched through my 300mm camera lens as Chavez tried in vain to stop the bleeding I noticed that he was doing what most cutmen will do in such instances. Apply pressure using clean gauze with epinephrine and then apply Vaseline.
Experience indicates that many times, such procedure is enough to stop the bleeding.
But what happens if it does not?
I am not sure what Chavez was actually doing and what kind of medications he was using in addition to epinephrine and Vaseline.
However, based on my background and training as a doctor of dental surgery, I thought it would have helped if Chavez had more than epinephrine and Vaseline.
There are a few medications that can be used in circumstances like the one that involved Linares Saturday night at the Staples Center. As far as I know, these medications are legal to use ringside between rounds as I have heard them being discussed and approved in meetings by at least three State boxing commissions, California, Nevada and Texas.
One is Avitene and another is Surgicel. Thrombin is also another one that can be had and legal to use as well.
One draw back of these medications is that they are only available through prescriptions written by licensed medical professionals. Laymen including cutmen with no professional licenses related to medicine can not buy them.
And, they are awfully expensive!
Perhaps it is for such reasons that Chavez may not have any of the three aforementioned medications with him when he worked the corner of Linares. If he had them, the fight could have gone another way.
Chavez is undoubtedly a very experienced cutman. There is no question about that.
But experience sometimes is not enough!
In a few instances, the ability of the cutman to procure additional legal medications and the medical background to use them properly can make or break a fight.
Sadly, tonight, that was not true for Jorge Linares and thus he lost.
There is a huge probability that the bleeding cuts impaired his sight and perhaps even his moral and mental ability to fight. That allowed de Marco to catch up with him and there was nothing that can be done about it in spite of the great training camp and the conditioning he had.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.
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