Lucas Matthysse vs. Mauricio Herrera possible for Canelo-Khan undercard

By Boxing News - 02/20/2016 - Comments

Image: Lucas Matthysse vs. Mauricio Herrera possible for Canelo-Khan undercardBy Jeff Aranow: Former light welterweight title challenger Lucas Matthysse (37-4, 34 KOs) will be moving up to the 147lb division for his next fight on the undercard of the May 7 fight card headlined by WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Amir Khan on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Matthysse’s possible opponent is 35-year-old Mauricio Herrera (22-5, 7 KOs), who would be moving up from the 140lb division to take the fight with the 33-year-old Matthysse.

Golden Boy Promotions, the promoter or Matthysse, is looking to put the fight together. This fight would likely be the co-feature bout on the Canelo vs. Khan fight card. However, it’s a great fight, as Matthysse is coming off of a 10th round stoppage loss in his last fight against Viktor Postol last year in a fight in which Matthysse quit after getting knocked down. Herrera has lost two out of his last four fights.

Herrera lost to Jose Benavidez by a controversial 12 round unanimous decision in December 2014. Herrera also lost to Danny Garcia by a controversial 12 round majority decision in March 2014. You can say that Herrera should not have lost either of those fights. In that case, his last true loss was to Karim Mayfield in 2012. Before that fight, Mike Alvarado defeated Herrera by a 10 round decision in April 2012.

Herrera looks to be fighting at a higher level than Matthysse right now, and I would not be surprised at all if he defeats him. Matthysse did not look good in losing to Postol. It was Matthysse’s second consecutive hard fight, as he struggled to defeat Ruslan Provodnikov by a 12 round decision in April of last year.

Going from that fight to the Postol fight had to have been very hard on Matthysse, and it’s not surprising that he was beaten. Golden Boy should have given Matthysse a couple of easy fights to recover from the grueling fight against Provonikov before they threw him in the ring with Postol.

At 5’7”, Matthysse might be a little too small to fight in the 147lb division. While Matthysse is the same height as WBA welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman, he does not have the same large frame. Thurman really bulks up after he rehydrates for his fights, and he looks like a middleweight when he walks into the ring.

Matthysse rehydrates to a small welterweight after he weighs-in. Matthysse does not have the big frame to put on a ton of wter the way that other welterweights do. For that reason, I think he’s going to struggle when he starts fighting the bigger welterweights. Herrera is not a welterweight, so Matthysse only has to worry about being out-boxed and outworked in this fight.

This could be a bad career move for Matthysse to face Herrera, because he’s capable of out-boxing him the same way that Danny Garcia did in beating Matthysse in 2013. Herrera has a lot of different tricks that he knows how to use against stronger fighters. If Matthysse loses this fight, then it’s going to be a major blow to his career.



Comments are closed.