De La Hoya: Matthysse must impress against Postol to get Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 10/01/2015 - Comments

1-edit10By Dan Ambrose: If #2 WBC Lucas Matthysse (37-3, 34 KOs) defeats #1 WBC Viktor Postol (27-0, 11 KOs) in an impressive fashion in their fight for the vacant WBA light welterweight title this Saturday night, Matthysse could wind up facing Manny Pacquiao in 2016, according to Matthysse’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions.

De La Hoya thinks that a fight for Matthysse against Pacquiao is definitely possible if Matthysse looks really good in beating the tall 5’11” Postol this Saturday night on October 3rd on HBO Championship Boxing from the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

De La Hoya has been talking with Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum about potentially putting the two fighters together in early 2016. But it’s going to be hard for Matthysse to beat out Amir Khan and some of the other candidates that Arum is considering for the 36-year-old Filipino fighter.

Arum is also interested in matching Pacquiao against Juan Manuel Marquez, Terence Crawford and Kell Brook. Marquez would bring a lot of money for Pacquiao if Arum could talk the Mexican fighter into agreeing to another fight.

“We feel that Lucas Matthysse must come out aggressive, he must come out strong, and he must impress in order to get the Manny Pacquiao fight,” De La Hoya said. “I feel that Lucas Matthysse is in great shape. He’s ready for the fight just like any single fight in the past. But Postol is lanky, he’s strong, and he has a great trainer [Freddie Roach] in his corner. So I know he’s ready. It’s going to be a good fight. It’s going to be a tough fight for both guys. It has excitement all over it [Matthysse vs. Pacquiao]. It’s two Mack trucks coming together. Manny Pacquiao’s style and Lucas Matthysse’s style calls for another fight of the year. There’s no doubt about it. It’s a great fight coming up. There winner of any fight that’s coming up has a shot at fighting big names,” De La Hoya said.

Matthysse might not even be able to deal with Postol’s height, reach, high work rate and mobility for him to get a win over him. But even if Matthysse does somehow negate the height of Postol to get to get a victory, he’s not likely going to look good in winning the fight. Postol is going to make it ugly and very difficult for Matthysse to try and win. Matthysse will need to chase Postol around the ring, and deal with his holding.

Matthysse will need to knock the Ukrainian out to make sure he gets the win because he’s very likely going to be getting hit a lot more in this fight than he’s been accustomed to in the past. Postol throws a lot of punches, and he can do it all night long without tiring.

Postol doesn’t worry about loading up on his shots because his main objective is to throw as many punches as he can to score points. He’s kind of has an amateur style of fighting, and it’s going to be up to the judges to decide whether Postol’s lighter punchers hold more weight than Matthysse’s much harder shots.

Pacquiao vs. Matthysse would be a very good fight for the boxing fans. It might not be a good fight for Pacquiao though with him coming off of a shoulder injury. It would be a much different fight for Pacquiao than when he fought the slow slugger Brandon Rios in 2013. Matthysse would be in Pacquiao’s face and wouldn’t miss as often as Rios did, and he wouldn’t stop throwing punches like we saw with Rios. It would be an actual war, and if Pacquiao didn’t have the youth to win it, we could see him getting knocked out again like he was three years ago by Marquez in 2012.



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