By Dan Ambrose: This Saturday night former WBO light welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov (24-3, 17 KOs) and #2 WBC, #3 WBO Lucas Matthysse (36-3, 34 KOs) will be facing each other on HBO Championship Boxing from the Turning Stone Resort & Casino, in Verona, New York, USA.

#4 WBO Provodnikov has his work cut out for him in this fight because he needs Matthysse to stand in front of him and slug for him to have a chance of winning the fight.

Provodnikov does not move well around the ring, and he’s not good at cutting off the ring, as we saw in his fights against Tim Bradley and Chris Algieri. Both of those fighters were able to out-box Provodnikov. Mauricio Herrera also defeated Provodnikov.

Even DeMarcus Corley gave Provodnikov major problems in losing to him by a controversial 12 round decision in 2011. The guys that Provodnikov does well against are fighters that either stand perfectly still or come straight at Provodnikov all night long so that he doesn’t have to come looking for them.

“Provodnikov is coming forward coming straight at you like a train,” said boxing great Ray “Boom Boom” Mancinci to Thaboxingvoice.com. “Matthysse can be a boxer but this fight is going to come down to which guy will make the other guy do what he wants. If Provodnikov makes Matthysse fight in the trenches, he’ll beat him but if Matthysse gives him little side to side movement and gives Provodnikov angles, I think he beats him. I can’t wait to see the fight.”

Matthysse is very good at making his opponents miss with their shots even when he’s standing in the trenches. Once he figures out their fighting style, he’s able to elude their big punches even when standing in front of them. Matthysse did have problems against Danny Garcia, who used a jab and a left hook to do much of the damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFioETbislY

Matthysse later adjusted to the left hooks that Garcia was throwing and was able to dodge the shots. However, by the time that Matthysse figured out how to nullify Garcia’s left hooks, he already had a badly swollen eye that almost closed shut. The swollen eye gave Matthysse major problems throughout the second half of the fight.

Matthysse was also bothered by Garcia’s constant low blows that he was able to get away with. Referee Tony Weeks eventually took off one point from Garcia for the low blows, but he didn’t take the point off until the 12th round. Garcia had gotten away with hitting Matthysse low all fight long. Obviously not all fighters use low blows, but that’s something that Matthysse is vulnerable against, as we saw in the Garcia fight.

As long as Provodnikov keeps it clean by nailing Matthysse low all night, this should be a fairly one-sided fight. Provodnikov is not in Matthysse’s league, even though some boxing fans think he is. Provodnikov has only shined in fights against guys that were perfect for him to look good against like Mike Alvarado, Bradley [due to him choosing to slug rather than], 40-year-old Jose Luis Castillo, and to a certain extent Algieri. Provodnikov lost the fight to Algieri by a 12 round decision, but he was able to knock Algieri down a couple of times in the opening round.

“Matthysse will be throwing punches in bunches, Algieri didn’t do that,” Mancini said. “Provodnikov walked straight in against Algieri, I don’t think he’ll do that with Matthysse. This won’t be a track meet and it won’t go the distance.”

I don’t know that Matthysse will be able to knock Provodnikov out, but he could wind up stopping him on cuts. Provodnikov’s face tends to cut fairly easily, and he swells up quickly, even in fights where he’s dominating the action. Matthysse is one of the hardest punchers in the light welterweight division, and you’ve got to figure that he’ll be landing a lot of shots on Provodnikov. For that reason I think there’s a good chance that Matthysse will cut Provodnikov enough to get a stoppage. But more likely it’ll be Matthysse winning a clear 12 round decision perhaps by eight rounds to four margin.