By Eric Baldwin: The big punching Lucas Matthysse will be fighting at welterweight against 140lb fighter Emmanuel Taylor on the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. card on May 6 on HBO PPV at the T-Mobile Arena I Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s unknown if the Matthysse-Taylor fight will the co-main event on the Canelo-Chavez Jr. card. If so, it’ll be kind of a disappointment to some boxing fans, because the 26-year-old Taylor has lost many of his recent fights.
He’s lost 3 out of his last 6 fights since 2014. Taylor was beaten by Chris Algieri, Adrien Broner and Antonio Orozco. The fights were competitive and close, but Taylor still lost. Given that the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. card is on HBO PPV, you’d like to see more meaningful fights.
As of right now, the Matthysse-Matthysse fight will be televised on the PPV portion of the card on HBO. Whether it’s the co-feature bout or not is unknown. Golden Boy Promotions is still putting the undercard together.
The 35-year-old Matthysse hasn’t fought since losing to Viktor Postol in October 2015. Matthysse suffered an eye injury in getting stopped in round 10 of that fight. There was worry that Matthysse might retire from boxing after that fight, as it’s been quite a long time since he last fought. Matthysse had won three straight fights at the time he was beaten by Postol. Matthysse had bounced back well from a 12 round unanimous decision loss to Danny Garcia on September 14, 2013.
Going into the Postol fight, a lot of boxing fans thought that the 5’6 ½” Matthysse had a good chance of winning that fight. The main problem that hurt Matthysse’s chances of beating Postol was his lack of height and reach. Matthysse was too short, and he kept getting hit by the 5’11” Ukrainian fighter as he was coming forward in the fight.
“I’m very happy to return to the ring and especially on such an important show such as Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. on May 6 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas,” said Lucas Matthysse. “I’ve always brought great fights to demanding fans, and this one against Emmanuel Taylor will not be the exception.”
Matthysse likely will beat Taylor, but it won’t be an easy fight. Taylor has never been knocked out in his 8-year boxing career, and he’s got good skills. The good news for Matthysse is that he’s fighting someone from the 140 lb. division in Taylor. The other thing that Matthysse has going for him is Taylor being only 5’7 ½”, and not a really tall fighter like Postol.
Matthysse might be making a mistake in moving up to welterweight. He’s not tall enough to compete against the bigger fighters in the 147 lb. division.
“Lucas truly was a machine in the super lightweight division, and we expect him to do similar damage in the field of welterweights,” said Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya.
The best thing Golden Boy can do with Matthysse is take it easy with him, and get him highly ranked at welterweight so he can get a nice payday. He’s probably going to be too small to beat any of the champions at 147 unless he can find a way to get close enough to them for him to land his big power shots. Danny Garcia used a lot low blows and holding to beat Matthysse in 2013. A rematch with Garcia would be a winnable fight for Matthysse if he can figure out a way to deal with the low blows.