Jorge Linares has played out all situations for how his fight with Devin Haney might go Saturday night.
If Haney, who has talked about "expecting a firefight," greets "El Nino" with aggression, Linares vows to be prepared.
"(Haney's) trying to train more physical than he's been because I think he wants to make a KO very soon, very quickly in one or two rounds," Linares tells DAZN News, should he encounter an aggressive Haney. "If he thinks that ... he's going to do a very bad mistake with me because I train a lot and made different plans, different expectations for this fight."
If Haney tries to stretch out the ring, use his range and box Linares for 12 rounds, the former three-division world champion says he has a strategy to counter that, too.
"For me the more important thing for this fight is stamina because I'm fighting with somebody who runs too much," Linares says. "Like the last fight he had with (Yuriorkis) Gamboa, he used all the ring. I need to be ready for that. I need to confront, I need to press him all the time."
Whatever strategy Haney deploys for his WBC world lightweight title defense at the Michelob ULTRA Arena at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada, and live on DAZN, Linares warns the 23-year-old that he simply doesn't have the experience and that could spell the difference in their anticipated tilt.
"I'll use all my strategy, all my experience," Linares doubles down with. "The important thing for this fight is my experience and all my courage.
"I don't care how old I am," adds the 35-year-old. "The more important thing is how good I feel."
And Linares feels hungry to prove that "El Nino" can turn "The Dream" into a nightmare and reign as lightweight champion once again. The idea isn't foreign, considering Linares held either the WBC or WBA lightweight title from 2014-2018, before losing the WBA and The Ring titles to Vasiliy Lomachenko in May 2018 by 10th-round TKO at Madison Square Garden. He wants Saturday night to be a proving ground for why relegating him to gatekeeper status at lightweight would be premature.
"I fought the pound-for-pound best Lomachenko," says Linares remembering the clash three years ago. "I still have a lot of chance at this weight. Lightweight is a a very hard weight right now. We can see a lot of good talent, especially in young people. Teofimo Lopez, Ryan Garcia, too, also Haney. They have very good talent. Now, I need to be ready, too. I still have that plan to fight with Haney, win the fight and then see if I could get the fight with championship with Lopez or Ryan Garcia."
While that goal is ambitious, there's no doubting Linares' experience on a big stage. At 35, he touts a 47-5 record with 27 KOs to Haney's pristine 25-0 with 15 KOs. At his height, Linares had defended the same WBC title that Haney currently owns twice and the WBA and The Ring straps three times before running into Lomachenko. Though he bounced back with a third-round KO of Abner Cotto three months later in September 2018, Linares was shocked via a devastating first-round TKO at the hands of Pablo César Cano in January 2019.
He's confident that a fourth-round KO of Carlos Morales in February 2020 can serve as a springboard for the tools that he'll be hitting Haney with Saturday night. But then there's the point that part of Linares' rich experience included helping Haney sharpen his own tools. The lightweights trained together more than three years ago, doing a sparring session in Las Vegas.
"Now, we have this fight. I helped him train very well to do an amazing fight with me," Linares says with a chuckle. "This guy is a good champion. He's a young guy, very fast boxer, very nice combinations."
That said, Linares doesn't want to be a chapter in Haney's coming of age story. He'd rather further cement his own legacy.
"It's very important for me to make an amazing plan," Linares says. "I'm trying to do an amazing strategy to win this fight.
"I want to show everyone May 29 who I am."
If they don't already know by May 29, Linares is banking on them never forgetting from May 30 and beyond.