By Byron Wallin: This past Saturday night light welterweight contender Lucas Matthysse (31-2, 29 KO’s) produced a career best performance in destroying the game former two time lightweight champion of the World Humberto Soto (58-8-2, 34 KO’s).

Soto fought bravely, and for the first few rounds appeared to have some success with his jab and solid boxing skills. However, nothing he landed appeared to deter Matthysee, who used controlled come forward aggression to get inside Soto’s shots and land devastating hooks and straight shots to both the head and body of the 32 year old warrior. It was an awe inspiring performance that harked back to the style of past warriors such as Mickey Ward Arturo Gatti and Jake Lamotta amongst others. Resulting in Soto being unable to answer the bell for the sixth round, a wise decision as I for one was genuinely concerned for his health had he continued.

The sad truth of modern boxing is that although this stunning performance should serve as a springboard for Matthysse’s career, it may instead result in him becoming even more revered and avoided than he was prior to this Saturday night. Indeed, one fighter I can envision as wanting no part of Matthysse is former WBA/IBF light welterweight champion Amir Khan. Khan is a masterful boxer when he is able to dictate the range and pace of a fight with his excellent jab and lightening quick combinations. However, in his close decision victory over Marcos Maidana, and controversial loss to the now disgraced Lamont Peterson, Khan’s lack of an inside fighting game was exposed, leading to him shipping a lot of punishment and spending much of the fights on the back foot trying to find room to throw his own shots.

Matthysse appears to be a more refined version of Maidana. This was evident in the way he was blocking shots as he moved inside before unleashing his own power punches. Matthysse is also arguably a bigger puncher than Maidana and certainly a far harder hitter than Peterson. If Khan decided to take a fight with Matthysee, I do not see him being capable of applying any sort of game plan that could keep Lucas off him. He is too strong and relentless, and would almost certainly stop Amir. For this reason it is sad that Lucas will probably miss out on a career high pay day and the chance to take the scalp of one of boxing’s ‘Golden Boys’.