After announcing his retirement, Jorge Linares describes Jack Catterall as a “much better” fighter than Josh Taylor

THE now-retired Jorge Linares heaped reward on Jack Catterall after dropping to the Chorley southpaw in Liverpool final night time.

Linares, 38, informed Boxing News his 56^th struggle was to be his final. The Venezuelan misplaced for the fourth time in a row, which implies his ultimate victory is now recorded as a fourth-round knockout of Carlos Morales effectively over three years in the past.

Catterall, 28-1 (13), will now hope to face a extra threatening problem in his subsequent struggle, with bitter rival Josh Taylor seemingly the main target of ‘El Gato’ and promoter Eddie Hearn. The Scot took to Twitter final night time to pour scorn on Catterall and his win over Linares. Both males have been at one another’s throats ever since their bout in February 2022in Glasgow, the place the Scot prevailed thanks to 2 of the three judges favouring his work. However, to at the present time many imagine that Catterall was robbed of a well-known victory which might have given him all of the belts at super-lightweight.

Linares, who, in a profession spanning 21 years, has confronted the likes of Devin Haney and Vasily Lomachenko, as effectively as Brits Kevin Mitchell, Luke Campbell and Anthony Crolla, gave his verdict on Catterall.

“He’s an amazing fighter,” he stated. “He has a lot of punches, he has a very difficult talent, difficult style. For me it’s a little difficult. I respect him so I want to say congratulations to him because he’s a world champion. For me, he never lost the fight with Taylor. He’s much better than Taylor.”

Linares leaves the game with 47 wins, 9 defeats, and 29 victories inside the gap. The fan favorite additionally received world titles at featherweight, super-featherweight and light-weight.