Anthony Crolla vs. Luke Campbell in the works for April.14

Boxingnews24.com

By Marcus Richardson: A fight between former WBA lightweight champion Anthony Crolla (32-6-3, 14 KOs) and Luke Campbell (17-2, 14 KOs) is being negotiated by promoter Eddie Hearn for April 14. Hearn revealed the news to IBF TV that he’s looking to make the Crolla-Campbell fight.

This will be a good fight. Crolla was looking very good until recently when he was beaten twice by Jorge Linares. Crolla came back from those losses to defeat Ricky Burns by a questionable 2 round unanimous decision on October 7 in Manchester, England. A lot of boxing fans saw the fight and felt that Burns had done enough to deserve the decision. Burns didn’t argue about it afterwards. He took the controversial loss without complaint.

Hearn had hoped to negotiate a rematch for the 30-year-old Campbell against WBA World lightweight champion Jorge Linares (43-3, 27 KOs) for the UK, but he’s not been able to do so. It appears that Linares prefers the idea of fighting in the States at the present time.

Linares, 32, defeated Campbell by a 12 round split decision on September 23 last year at The Forum in Inglewood, California. The fight was close going into the last 3 rounds, but Linares turned it on in rounds 10, 11 and 12 to pull out the victory.

If Campbell had been able to deal with Linares’ combination punching, he would have come away with the victory Campbell still thinks he did enough to deserve the decision, but 2 of the judges felt otherwise in giving the win to Linares by the scores 15-112 and 114-113. The British judge, Victor Louglin, had Campbell winning by the score 115-113.

Linares is defending his WBA title this Saturday night against Mercito Gesta at The Forum in Inglewood. If Linares wins that fight, then he’s expected to face WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia in a unification fight in his next match. If Mikey wins, he’s talked about wanting to move up to 140 permanently. If he does that, he’ll likely vacate the WBA and WBC lightweight titles for Campbell and Crolla to fight over.

The 5’9” southpaw Campbell seemed to do a better job against Linares than Crolla did in his 2 fights against him. Linares did a lot of coasting after dominating the first 4 rounds. Linares backed off entirely from rounds 5 to 9, and he let Campbell come back and get into the fight.

Campbell is rated #2 WBC and #3 WBA. He’s in good position to fight for either of those belts once the dust settles from the Mikey Garcia vs. Linares fight. If Linares beats Garcia, he’ll stay at lightweight and defend the titles. Garcia has bigger plans in wanting to go after the big money matches at 140 and 147. There’s more money for Mikey in those weight classes than if he stays at 135 for the remainder of his career.

Campbell’s career hasn’t panned out for him despite having won a gold medal in the 2012 Olympics in London. Campbell turned pro in 2013, but he’s not been able to have the same kind of success that he did in the amateurs. Campbell was beaten by Yvan Mendy by a 12 round split decision on December 12, 2015. It was a close fight, but Campbell was dropped in round 5 by Mendy, and he had problems with him all throughout the fight.

Campbell was knocked down in round 2 of his fight against the past his best Argenis Mendez in their fight in July 2016. Campbell was able to get up and win the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision, but it was troubling to see him getting knocked down so easily. Mendez threw very few punches in the fight. Campbell’s loss to Linares was simply a case of him not having the talent to beat the more experienced fighter.