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Linardatou has gone all Rocky IV ahead of Katie Taylor world title fight

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Christina Linardatou [12(6)-1(0)] has gone all Rocky 4 as she prepares to scalp Katie Taylor [14(6)-0] in Manchester early next month.

The Dominican Republic born Greece native puts her WBO light welterweight world title on the line against the undisputed lightweight champion in a top of the bill fight on November 2.

Despite being the champion, ‘Medusa’ is a big underdog for the fight and comes in with outside challenger odds.

Indeed, Linardatou is upset, that as the champion she wasn’t afforded the same rematch clause challenger Taylor was, for the world title fight.

However, despite being angered by what she deemed disrespectful treatment toward a champion, the 31-year-old is happy to train like a challenger for what remains the biggest fight of her career.

In fact, according to her manager Brian Cohen she has gone old school and is training like Rocky Balboa did for his clash with Ivan Drago.

Linardatou has gone into solitude up the mountains to ensure she is in the shape possible for the massive Manchester Arena hosted, DAZN and Sky Sports broadcast headliner.

“Christina is always in shape the only thing we did different this time was have her train in the mountains like it was Rocky 4,” Cohen told Irish-boxing.com before stressing he has noticed she has become more aggressive in the build up to the fight.

“The difference I see in her is her violent comments, her anxiousness to fight and confidence.”

Both Cohen and Linardatou have been respectful to Taylor in the build up to the fight and the Bray fighter has reciprocated – the ground breaking star even went as far as to call her November foe the best champion in a weight that includes Jessica McCaskill.

Still, Cohen believes like Drago, even the Olympic gold medal winner has weaknesses that his fighter can exploit.

“Katie has weaknesses yes. It’s Christina’s job to execute the game plan and exploit them,” he adds before admitting that like Taylor, L is not a natural light welterweight.

“Christina is a not a natural light welterweight. She’s a super featherweight blown up to a 140 pound boxer.”

Cohen all but stole the show at the press conference to officially announce the fight as he questioned Hearn at the top table re the the rematch clause.

Considering the traveling fighter was getting, by some distance, her biggest pay day and had a second DAZN fight as part of the deal, the Matchroom boss was taken aback and things seemed to get heated.

However, the veteran female fight manager claims the pair have worked things out.

“All the reaction I got was positive. Some people said I shouldn’t have brought that up at the press conference but when we were at the press conference the contract was still sitting in my inbox. If I didn’t like what [Eddie] said I would have shut it down. But Eddie and i spoke and we worked it out. “

dpg

Jonny Stapleton

Irish-boxing.com contributor for 15 years and editor for the past decade. Have been covering boxing for over 16 years and writing about sports for a living for over 20 years. Former Assistant Sports editor for the Gazette News Paper Group and former Tallaght Voice Sports Editor. Have had work published in publications around the world when working as a freelance journalist. Also co-founder of Junior Sports Media and Leinster Rugby PRO of the Year winner. email: editoririshboxing@gmail.com

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