(Photo: Naoki Fakuda) By Dan Ambrose: Although listed as two inches shorter than the 5’9″ Lucas Matthysse (30-2, 28 KO’s), former WBC lightweight champion Humberto Soto (58-7-22, 34 KO’s) looked like the bigger guy during Friday’s weigh-in. When the two fighters came face to face, the 32-year-old Soto appeared at least one inch taller than Matthysse, and perhaps a little more.

Whether that size will mean anything that’s the major question in this fight.

Soto told RingTV “I’m going to fight the way that my corner wants me to fight, which is intelligently. I’m going to box and counter punch when I see openings. But if I see that I need to do more during the fight, if I need to stand my ground, I’ll do what I need to do.”

I don’t think Soto can beat Matthysse simply by counter punching, because he’s not fast enough. Matthysse just finished fighting two faster guys in Devon Alexander and Zab Judah, and they make Soto look slow in comparison. Soto can’t stand his ground with Matthysse because he doesn’t have the power or the speed to win that kind of fight. Matthysse is the younger fighter, and if he turns up the heat in a toe-to-toe battle, he’ll wear down Soto just as Urbano Antillon was doing in their controversial fight in 2010. Soto was lucky to have won that fight, as it just as easily could have gone the other way around.

Soto will try and box Matthysse, but he’s going to have to go to war because Matthysse will force the issue. The thing is Soto is so predictable with his uppercuts and hooks that it’s going to be easy for Matthysse to figure out what he’s doing tomorrow night and come up with a remedy for it. Soto doesn’t have a lot of power and he’s going to be there for Matthysse to land his big shots. At this point I don’t know if Soto can still fight hard like he did two years ago, because he’s not faced anyone even remotely good for so long.