By Allan Fox: Light welterweight contender Lucas Matthysse (36-3, 34 KOs) is currently looking to possibly face Ruslan Provodnikov in early 2015 among others for his first fight in 2015. It’s still unknown at this point whether Matthysse will be allowed to fight for the vacant World Boxing Organization light welterweight title that was recently stripped from champion Chris Algieri.
However, Matthysse wants to win the WBO strap and possibly unify the titles before moving up in weight in 2016 to look to get a fight against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr.
It’s definitely an ambitious plan for the 32-year-old Matthysse because it’ll require for him to beat the likes of Provodnikov, Terence Crawford and possibly Danny Garcia if he’s going to accomplish his goals in 2015.
“I dated for February 28, two or three rivals, the WBO title Superlight is vacant at 140 pounds. I’m number one so we are waiting to confirm my opponent and place, date and is,” Matthysse said via laestrella.com [http://laestrella.com.pa/deportes/boxeo/matthysse-desea-subir-peso-chocar-floyd/23833143]. “I also wish you face Mayweather Jr. in 2016. I want to move up in the next year I want to go up to 66 kg (147 pounds) and fight Floyd Mayweather. He is the best of all categories,” Matthysse said.
A fight against Mayweather is definitely a possibility for Matthysse, but only if he’s able to sweep the top light welterweight in 2015, and that remains to be seen. It’s a tough ask for Matthysse to beat Provodnikov, Crawford and Danny Garcia. But it might be even tougher for him to get the fights against any or all of them, because there will definitely be potential roadblocks out there making it difficult for Matthysse to get fights against the likes of Crawford and in particular Garcia.
Matthysse lost to Garcia by a 12 round decision in September 2013, and since then Garcia has shown no interest in fighting Matthysse again, even though it would be a much bigger fight than the guys that Garcia has been facing lately in Rod Salka and Mauricio Herrera. Garcia has been playing it safe with his titles recently, and he doesn’t appear to be willing to take any risky fights right now after his grueling clinch-filled win over Matthysse in 2013.
Garcia doesn’t want to take his career backwards he says and face Matthysse again, but at the same time, Garcia isn’t taking his career forward either. He seems to be just milking his titles with safe fights. He should have lost the fight to Herrera but was given a gift decision in Puerto Rico. Not surprisingly, Garcia’s not interested in facing Herrera again either.
The odds of Matthysse being able to move up in weight in 2016 and getting a fight against Mayweather aren’t very good at this point. Matthysse might move up in weight, but unless he’s able to beat two or three big names in 2015, he’s not going to get a popular fighter like Mayweather to fight him. Mayweather has other options like rematches with Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez he can take in 2016 if he decides to fight on after 2015.
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