(Photo: Naoki Fakuda) By Dan Ambrose: Humberto Soto (58-7-2, 34 KO’s) and Lucas Matthysse (30-2, 28 KO’s) will be meeting up in a fight for the vacant WBC Continental Americas light welterweight title tonight on the undercard of the Victor Ortiz vs. Josesito Lopez bout at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

The Soto-Matthysse fight isn’t the main event but it definitely should be after Andre Berto pulled out of his fight against Ortiz, leaving little known fringe contender Lopez to take his place. Few people see the Ortiz-Lopez fight as being a competitive one, as Lopez doesn’t have the power or the speed needed to give Ortiz any problems. The Matthysse vs. Soto bout, however, promises to be a very exciting one from start to finish. Both fighters bring excellent credentials into the ring, and both will be looking to slug it out.

Matthysse doesn’t want to take any chances of losing by a decision, so he’ll be trying his best to take the judges out of the formula by focusing on shooting for a KO. It’s not likely to happen, though, because Soto has an excellent chin and has never been stopped before.

Soto dominated at lightweight from 2009 to 2011. However, he never really faced anyone at that weight class as good as Matthyse. The closest thing that Soto fought that could be compared to Mattysse was Urbano Antillon, and he almost beat Soto in 2010.

After that fight boxing fans were eager to see a rematch between the two, but Soto passed up on the idea of another grueling fight with Antillon, and instead chose to fight five soft opponents. That’s where Soto is now. He’s not faced a live opponent in years and he’s about to face what could be the best fighter in the light welterweight division in 28-year-old Matthysse. It’s going to be interesting to see how Soto performs against Matthysse.