By Victor Salazar

Jorge Linares will take his WBC world lightweight title on the road when he meets Kevin Mitchell in England in his 1st defense of his title. We have a very big fight with Kevin Mitchell. Linares doesn’t mind traveling one bit to his foe’s country. In fact he welcomes it.

“I think it’s a big challenge,” Linares told BoxingScene.com in Las Vegas.  “I don’t mind going to fight in his town. I’m comfortable wherever it is whether it’s here in Vegas or in England.”

Linares suffered two bad defeats in succession. Both defeats were stoppages that came by the hands of Antonio Demarco and Sergio Thompson. Many people wrote him off but Linares felt there’s always going to be times when you fall but it’s more about how you get up from the falls.

“People though my career was over,” Linares said. “I felt hard but I got back up. Here we are with another title and my career is moving forward. I’m a 2 time world champion. We have a close knit group, and I feel my career is in good hands.”

 A big change was in Linares’ corner. He switched to trainer Ismael Salas after his defeat to Thompson. Before then, Freddie Roach was the head coach. Linares has the utmost respect for Roach but says the connection with Salas is the difference.

“I give Freddie Roach all the credit in the world and thank him for being a part of my career but now I’m with Ismael Salas,” Linares said. “We have 4 knockouts together. Now we’re on to the biggest fight of our career, defending our title. We have a connection, he’s here in Vegas and he talks Spanish, we just have a good connection. Its working out well and come May 30th, it will work out well as well.”