Matthysse-Dallas Jr. drug tests come up negative

By Boxing News - 01/31/2013 - Comments

matthysse2By Allan Fox: The drug tests for last Saturday’s fight on Showtime between WBC interim light welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse (33-2, 30 KO’s) and Mike Dallas Jr. (19-3-1, 8 KO’s) have come out negative for performance enhancing drugs.

This takes the heat out of suspicions of Dallas Jr’s trainer Virgil Hunter, who made a big production about spotting Matthysse drinking an amino acid beverage before his fight with Dallas Jr. ast Saturday. Matthysse was surprised by the fuss that Hunter was making out of it, and he predicted that his drug test results would be negative.

As for the fight, it really wasn’t much of a contest because Dallas Jr. was planked in the 1st round by a solid right hand from Matthysse that put Dallas Jr. down on his face on the canvas. The real question about the fight is why the light hitting Dallas Jr. made the decision to right after the hard hitting Matthysse in the 1st round instead of playing it safe to keep out of harm’s until later in the fight.

Was this Dallas Jr’s trainer Virgil Hunter’s brilliant idea for him to go after Matthysse immediately instead of boxing him? If so, then the credit that Hunter gets for being a great trainer needs to be rethought because that was a really poor fight strategy.

Matthysse is one of the biggest punchers in the 140 pound division, and Dallas Jr. made it really easy for him by going straight at him.

Matthysse will likely have to take another tune-up bout before he’ll finally get a chance at fighting WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia this year, and that’s if the World Boxing Council will enforce their order to make Garcia fight Matthysse.

The WBC said Garcia has to fight Matthysse after his title defense against Zab Judah on April 27th, but that might not mean anything unless the WBC is ready to force the issue if Garcia’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions try and slip in a Garcia vs. Amir Khan rematch before the Matthysse bout. You can bet that Golden Boy will try to do that because the Khan-Garcia II fight is a much bigger money fight than a Garcia vs. Matthysse bout.



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