(Photo credit: Hogan Photos) By Dan Ambrose: Undefeated Viktor Postol (27-0, 11 KOs) and his manager Vadim Kornilov see this Saturday’s Lucas Matthysse (37-3, 34 KOs) fight as a ”revenge fight” for the 31-year-old Postol to avenge Ruslan Provodnikov’s loss earlier this year in April to Matthysse.
Provodnikov took a beating in losing by a 12 round majority decision. It was his 3rd defeat in his last 4 fights. If Postol’s management is looking to avenge the defeats of Provodnikov, then they’re going to need to add Mauricio Herrera, Tim Bradley and Chris Algieri to their lists as well, because all three of those fighters also beat Provodnikov.
The fact of the matter is Provodnikov’s career is floundering now, and he appears to be headed for journeyman status in the near future. Granted, Provodnikov will be a high level journeyman, but he’ll soon be a journeyman nonetheless if he keeps losing the way he’s losing now.
“This is a revenge fight for our team after Lucas defeated Ruslan Provodnikov earlier this year,” Kornilov said. “We know he can brawl with Postol, and we will be ready for that. I think our team can be victorious because we will be prepared for whatever he has in the ring.”
It’s unlikely that whoever Postol, his trainer Freddie Roach and Kornilov brought into training camp to get them ready for the Matthysse fight was anything close to being as good as him. If Postol’s sparring partners were as good as Matthysse, or even almost as good as him, then they wouldn’t be sparring partners.
I don’t think a fighter can really prepare for a fighter like Matthysse with the help of sparring partners. The only thing you can do is plan out different tricks like holding, running and practicing up your low blows.
Those are the things that former WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia did to negate Matthysse’s offense. I think the low blows were the most effective thing that Garcia did in the Matthysse fight, because he pulled that tool out of the toolbox frequently when Matthysse started getting some momentum and having success.
Matthysse didn’t fire back with his own low blows to train Garcia not to use those blows, so the low blows continued for the entire fight.
“He [Matthysse] was afraid to brawl against Provodnikov, and we are going to force him to brawl on Saturday night,” Kornilov said.
I’m not sure what fight Kornilov was watching last April because if he was watching the Matthysse-Provodnikov fight that I saw, Matthysse was brawling with Provodnikov all fight long and was messing him up big time.
If Kornikov meant that Matthysse wasn’t dropping his guard to let Provodnikov him freely, then yes, it’s true that he wasn’t pretending to be a punching bag for Provodnikov to land his shots. But Matthysse definitely slugged it out with Provodnikov and got the better of him in most of the rounds.
If Postol really does intend on slugging it out with Matthysse like Kornilov says, I think it could go really badly for Postol. He’s too weak, too tall and too inexperienced to fight a slugger like Matthysse in a brawling manner.
This isn’t Selcuk Aydin that Postol is fighting. I would hope that Postol and Kornilov realize the difference in talent and work rate between Matthysse and a limited fighter like Aydin, who by the way is arguably the best name on Postol’s limited resume. Matthysse is a 1st tier fighter. Aydin is clearly a 2nd tier guy, and maybe even a 3rd tier. There’s no comparison between the two of them.
“Freddie Roach is not here today so I’m still in charge,” said Marvin Somodio, Roach’s assistant trainer to Postol. “This is going to be the second time our team has faced Lucas (after facing him earlier this year on Provodnikov’s team). On Saturday night, we are not going to let Lucas win again.”
I think it’s going to go badly for Postol on Saturday night. I don’t see him being able to do as well as Provodnikov did against Matthysse because he doesn’t have the punching power to stand and trade with him. If Postol is just going to run and hold all night long, then he’s going to lose by a one-sided decision. Postol won’t be able to get much on his shots if he’s forced to run all night.
Matthysse vs. Postol will be taking place on HBO Championship boxing from the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
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