By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten WBC Silver light welterweight champion Roberto Ortiz (31-0-1, 24 KOs) will have his work cut out for him tonight in defending his title against WBO, #2 WBC, #3 IBF Lucas Matthysse (35-3, 33 KOs) in what should be a thrilling fight from start to finish at the U.S Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio. The fight will be televised on Showtime as part of a triple-header with Adrien Broner vs. Emmanuel Taylor in the main event and Andre Berto vs. Steve Upsher Chambers in the first bout of the night.

Matthysse has had some grueling fights lately with his wars with Danny Garcia and John Molina. The Molina was an especially difficult one for Matthysse for he was knocked down twice in the 2nd and the 5th.

Matthysse also suffered a bad cut over his left eye in the 3rd round from a clash of heads. Things were looking bad for Matthysse until he came back to score a knockdown in the 10th. Molina never fully recovered from that knockdown, and Matthysse was able to knock him out in the 11th round to get the victory.

Ortiz has the kind of power that will make this as interesting fight tonight. If he can get to Matthysse early the same way that Molina did then we could see an exciting fight. But Ortiz isn’t that fast of hand and his defense is power. He’s very easy to hit, and he lacks experience.

Before this fight, Ortiz was still fighting lower level opposition in Mexicao. He was doing a good job of padding his resume with the likes of Ramiro Alcaraz, Reyes Sanchez, Jorge Romero, Fidel Monterrosa Munoz and Florencio Castellano, but he wasn’t doing himself any favors by getting the kind of experience that would help him tonight against a quality fighter like Matthysse. All you can hope for is that Ortiz has gotten good sparring for tonight’s fight against 1st tier opposition so that he won’t be in shock when he gets in the ring with Matthysse.

Ortiz has got to go after Matthysse immediately in this fight and turn into a war if he’s to have a chance of winning. Danny Garcia was able to gain an advantage over Matthysse by hitting him with frequent low blows and holding him constantly in clinches.

It was lucky that Garcia had a passive referee in Tony Weeks working the fight because with all the low blows and holding, Garcia arguably should have been disqualified for his tactics.

Ortiz obviously can’t low blow and hold his way to victory tonight, and he likely won’t get credit for a knockdown like the one that Garcia got against Matthysse in which he shoved Matthysse into the ropes, causing him to get tangled and then punched him until he dropped. It’s doubtful that another referee would allow a knockdown like that to be scored as a legitimate one.