Lucas Matthysse vs. Emanuel Taylor – Results

By Boxing News - 05/06/2017 - Comments

Image: Lucas Matthysse vs. Emanuel Taylor - Results

By Jim Dower: Former world title challenger Lucas Matthysse (38-4, 35 KOs) made an impressive welterweight debut in stopping Emanuel Taylor (20-5, 14 KOs) in the 5th round on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Matthysse knocked Taylor down with a left-right combination in round 5. The bloody and battered Taylor got back to his feet, but referee Jay Nady chose to halt the fight without letting the action resume.

Matthysse also knocked Taylor down in round 3. Taylor was also hurt in round 4 from a big left hook from Matthysse late in the round.

In the 3rd round, Matthysse suffered a cut over his over his right eye from a clash of heads. Matthysse retreaded backwards after suffering the cut. There was some concern whether Matthysse suffered another eye injury like the one he’d suffered in his loss to Viktor Postol. When the action resumed, Taylor charged Matthysse and hit him with a number of hard shots in trying to take advantage of him being hurt from the head butt. Matthysse was able to regroup late in the round and nail Taylor with some big shots.

In round 4, Mathyse took it easy in the first half of the round in looking for single shots. Near the end of the round, Matthysse staggered aylor with a tremendous left hook to the head. Taylor retreated to the ropes and took a beating in the last seconds of the round. You’ve’ to give Taylor a lot of credit for taking the punishment that he did without getting stopped until the 5th.

Matthysse hurt Taylor in every round with his big power shots. Mathysse had a little bit of fat on his midsection, but that’s understandable given that he’d been out of the ring for 1 ½ years since his 10th round knockout loss to Postol in 2015. Matthysse looked pretty sharp for someone that had been out of action for a long time.

It’ll be interesting to see where Matthysse goes from here. His punching power clearly carried from the 140 lb. division. The big question is whether Matthysse can handle the big punchers in the welterweight division. Taylor was able to land a lot of shots tonight against Matthysse. That’s something that Matthysse is going to need to take care of because he’s not going to be able to take the kind of shots he took tonight when he starts facing the bigger punchers in the welterweight division in the near future.

Matthysse wants a rematch with Danny Garcia, who beat him several years ago. Matthysse also wants a fight against Manny Pacquiao. Whether he gets either of those fights is the big question.