By Dan Ambrose: Interim WBC light welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse (32-2, 30 KO’s) will be facing fringe contender Mike Dallas Jr. (19-2-1, 8 KO’s) on January 26th instead of Hank Lundy at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to fightnews.com, Lundy was pulled out of the fight by his manager, as he didn’t get permission to face Matthysse.
Lundy didn’t stand a chance against Matthysse and neither does Dallas Jr., who has lost two out of his last four fights. Both Lundy and Dallas Jr. are about the same in terms of talent and it doesn’t really matter that Lundy is out and Dallas Jr. is in. They’re both mismatches.
Dallas Jr. is ranked #10 WBO and was beaten twice last year in a 7th round stoppage loss to Josesito Lopez and a 10 round majority decision defeat to Mauricio Herrera. Dallas Jr. has won his last two fights against Miguel Gonzalez and Javier Castro.
Dallas Jr. started his career well, going 17-0-1 until tasting defeat for the first time when he finally stepped it up against quality opposition for the first time in his career against Lopez last year. He was way out of his depth and took a beating from Lopez until getting stopped in the 7th round.
Other than that, there’s not much to get excited about with Dallas Jr. His best wins have come against 2nd tier opposition and he doesn’t have much power to speak of.
Matthysse wants to look good against Dallas Jr. and get him out of the way early to get ready for a fight against WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia next year. That’s the big fight that Matthysse is targeting for next year, and hopefully the World Boxing Council make sure that Matthysse gets that fight because Garcia might choose to keep skipping that fight to face less dangerous.
We’ve already seen Garcia face a past his best Erik Morales twice, and now he’s fighting an old Zab Judah in February. We could see Garcia then choose to fight Amir Khan after that with Matthysse being shoved to the side to wait even more.
Matthysse should be able to destroy Dallas Jr. in four or five rounds. Matthysse is much better than Josesito Lopez, and we saw how easily Lopez beat Dallas Jr.
Comments are closed.