(Photo credit: Hogan Photos) By Jim Dower: #2 WBC contender Lucas Matthysse (37-3, 34 KOs) successfully made weight on Friday in coming in at 139.4 pounds for his bout on Saturday night on HBO against #1 WBC unbeaten Viktor Postol (27-0, 11 KOs) at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. Postol, 31, weighed in at the same weight as Matthysse in coming in at 139.4 pounds as well.
Matthysse and Postol will be fighting for the vacant WBA light welterweight title that was recently stripped from inactive champion Danny Garcia recently for him having failed to defend the belt for over a year.
This fight has a lot of meaning for the 33-year-old Matthysse, because if he wins it, he could be facing former eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao in February or April in 2016. Matthysse’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions says that Matthysse has a chance of getting the fight if he can look impressive in beating the taller 5’11” Ukrainian Postol.
“Lucas winning this title on Saturday night is a major deal for him, if he can do it,” De La Hoya said via ESPN.com. “But by him winning impressively, I think he has a great shot at fighting Pacquiao,” De La Hoya said. “Lucas Matthysse has expressed interest in moving up to 147 pounds and fighting Manny Pacquiao and Bob Arum threw Lucas’ name out there. So this is a very important fight not only for the world title, which means a lot to him, but because of the fact that he can also fight Pacquiao next year.”
In other weights on the card:
Antonio Orozco 140.6 vs. Humberto Soto 140
The #7 WBC Humberto Soto (65-8-2, 35 KOs) vs. #11 WBC Antonio Orozco (22-0, 15 KOs) fight is potentially the most interesting fight of the card because it matches two all-action fighters with excellent punching power and a lot of the skills.
This isn’t going to be a cat and mouse fight like the main event fight between Matthysse [the cat] and Postol [the mouse]. Orozco will be meeting the 35-year-old Soto in the center of the ring for the two of them to throw down with huge bombs from start to the likely bloody finish. Neither of these fighters are going to back up for a second in this fight.
Soto has a nice six-fight winning streak dating back since his 5th round knockout loss to Matthysse in 2012. Soto wasn’t ready to fight a fighter in the caliber of Matthysse when he fought him three years ago, because he’d only recently moved up to the 140lb division at the time he fought him. Since then, Soto has adjusted well to fighting in the light welterweight division, and he’s fighting at a much higher level now than he was before.
Soto defeated John Molina in an easy 10 round decision last year in September 2014. It’s unknown if Soto’s long period of inactivity will hurt him for this fight or not. You don’t like to throw a year of your career away when you’re 35 like Soto is.
Orozco, 27, has won all 22 fights in his seven year pro career. He recently won his biggest fight of his career with a victory over Emmanuel Taylor.
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