By Allan Fox: For all practical purposes, 32-year-old former WBC lightweight champion Humberto Soto (58-8-2, 34 KO’s) was making his first appearance at 140 last Saturday night in his 5th round stoppage loss to light welterweight contender Lucas Matthysse (31-2, 29 KOs) at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

Soto had previously fought three times at light welterweight before facing Matthysse, but those fights came against pumped up lightweights and not legitimate light welterweights like Matthysse. Since Soto was hesitant to fight legitimate light welterweights leading up to the Matthysse fight, it meant that Soto was going to have to deal with baptism through fire.

There would be no easing into the division for Soto. What he did was the equivalent of jumping up the high diving board before he’s even learned how to dive at this weight. Then Soto made matters worse for himself by trying to slug it out with the younger, stronger Matthysse.

You have to question the logic that went into thinking he could out-slug Matthysse. Soto should have been able to figure out early on that it might not be the best idea for him to try and punch with Matthysse. We saw how Mattysse was wearing Soto down with huge body shots, and this should have opened up the eyes of the veteran Soto and made him more focused on boxing Matthysse instead of punching it out.

Soto didn’t look at all good in this fight. The extra weight that he put on to make 140 seemed to be flab, because he looked really fleshy and old. It just looked like Soto gambled that he’d be able to use his boxing skills to dominate Matthysee, and when that didn’t happen, Soto had nothing to fall back on.

I think Soto needs to move back down to the lightweight division if he’s smart. He’s not going anywhere at light welterweight and if he fights another puncher in the Matthysse class, such as Mike Alvarado, Soto will get knocked out again.