Luke Campbell fought Jorge Linares for WBA title after keeping his father's death a secret for two weeks

Luke Campbell has revealed the heartbreaking
inspiration that drove him in the build-up to his defeat
by Jorge Linares on Saturday night.
The WBA lightweight title fight underdog suffered a
gallant split decision defeat in the US.
And Campbell has now revealed he was secretly
mourning the death of his father only two weeks
earlier.
Campbell’s dad, Bernard, had been battling cancer
since 2014 and passed away at home in Hull a
fortnight ago, aged 58.
Campbell tells the BBC that he had withheld the
devastating news in order to prevent his opponent
from perceiving a weakness before their fight.
"I probably cried once a day. I had to try and shut
feelings off. After the fight I had a good cry," he is
quoted by BBC Sport.
"If someone had found out I would have denied it. I
didn't want Linares' camp thinking it was a weakness.
I didn't want them thinking I was hurt.
"The only thing that kept me going is I know what my
dad would have wanted for me. To fight and to win."
Campbell dubbed his dad his “biggest believer” while
most in boxing gave him little chance of beating
Linares.
He showed them.
One judge, Scot Victor Loughlin, judged Campbell to
have won 115-113 but the cards of the other two
judges were in Linares’ favour.
Campbell thought he’d won the fight and “outclassed”
his opponent.
The defeat is the second of Campbell's career after
his shock loss to Yvan Mendy in 2015, while Linares -
whose last two fights were points victories over
Mancunian Anthony Crolla - extended his record to 43
wins.
The first round was a cagey affair with Linares landing
a good right hand and it was the right hand that put
Campbell to the canvas in the second.
A nasty cut opened under Campbell's right eye and
while the Yorkshireman recovered well, Linares was
still landing the better shots and Campbell was left
with too much to do in the second half of the
contest.
He was excellent in the middle and later rounds and
fought his way back to make it close on the
scorecards, but Linares never looked particularly
troubled.
In the ring afterwards, Campbell said: "No-one can
ever doubt my heart.
"I got off to a rocky start, he hit me with a nice clean
shot in the second round, caught me on the eye and
cut it. I wasn't dazed or anything like that, just a nice
shot that put me on my back.
"From then I had double-vision in one eye for the rest
of the fight."
He added: "I thought I won the fight. He's a great
champion but I thought I outclassed him. I didn't think
he was landing any shots whatsoever and I was
catching him with all the clean shots."
Campbell turns 30 on Wednesday and will attend his
father’s funeral on Thursday.

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