By William Mackay: 34-year-old Erik Morales goes after an almost unheard of 4th world title against Argentinian Lucas Matthysse next month on September 17th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Morales was thought to be a shot fighter going into his last fight against Marcos Maidana last April. However, Morales fought well, and almost beat Maidana.

Morales lost by a close 12 round majority decision but won raves from boxing fans who were very impressed with his performance. The loss should have put Morales to the back of the line you would think. However, the World Boxing Council decided to do Morales a big favor by giving him a shot at the vacant WBC light welterweight belt, which the WBC conveniently stripped from champion Timothy Bradley recently.

Whether Matthysse and Morales actually deserve to be fighting for a title right now is another matter altogether given that both fighters are coming off of losses. But it’s still a very interesting fight because of Morales’ great skills, famous name and because of how good a fighter Matthysse it. He should be still undefeated because his only losses of his career – against Zab Judah and Devon Alexander – were considered robberies in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans.

I personally wouldn’t call them robberies, but I do think Matthysse clearly deserved the get the decision in both of those losses. Matthysse does have his flaws, though. He doesn’t throw enough punches and is way too cautious during critical rounds. For example, he gave away the first four rounds in his fight against Judah by being too respectful of Judah’s power.

By the time Matthysse started to press the attack in the 5th, he was already down four rounds to none, and that made it a lot easier for Judah to make it a much closer fight than it should have been.