By Dan Ambrose: WBC interim light welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse (32-2, 30 KO’s) will be looking to defend his title on January 26th against lightweight Henry Lundy (22-2-1, 11 KO’s) in what should be Matthysse’s warm-up for a big fight against WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia.
Garcia is the one that Matthysse, 30, really wants to fight because he wants to capture those titles, and prove that he’s the best in the light welterweight division. A win for Matthysse over Garcia could lead to some much important bouts in the future.
Lundy, 28, obviously has been selected because he’s somewhat known by casual boxing fans in the United States due to some of his previous fights being televised on ESPN. Lundy has looked impressive in beating Dannie Williams, David Diaz, Patrick Lopez and Omri Lowther. He’s also looked terrible in defeats against Ramundo Beltran and John Molina. The loss to Beltran came in his last fight in July, and Lundy just looked like he couldn’t handle the pressure that Beltran put on him.
Matthysse is a better puncher than Beltran, and he’s also a superior pressure fighter than him as well. Lundy is going to have to find some power and also use his legs a lot more for this fight because he’s going to get turned into ground beef by Matthysse if he doesn’t raise his game another level.
Matthysse has a couple of losses on his record against Zab Judah and Devon Alexander. Those fights are open to debate whether Matthysse should have won or whether he deserved to lose them.
I had Matthysse winning both fights by close decisions, but I wasn’t surprised with the outcome because he went into Judah and Alexander’s hometown for those fights and when you do that you got to figure that the home fighter is already starting off with a four round lead, and it’s up to you to make up for that lead by fighting aggressively from the start. Matthysse didn’t do that in both of those fights, and instead he came in the last part of those fights to dominate.
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