By Bill Phanco: Interim WBC light welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse (32-2, 30 KO’s) will be making his first defense of his WBC interim title on January 26th against contender Mike Dallas Jr. (19-2-1, 8 KO’s) at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Matthysse, 30, wanted to be fighting WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia but he has a fight against 35-year-old Zab Judah next month on February 9th. Matthysse will eventually get the Garcia fight but he may have to wait until the end of the year unless Garcia suddenly shows an interest in fighting him.
In the meantime, the 26-year-old Dallas Jr. isn’t a bad option for the purposes of staying busy, looking good, and getting some nice training. Dallas Jr. doesn’t have much power and he clearly isn’t going to win this fight, but it should be a nice bout for Matthysse to keep the ring rust away. Dallas Jr. has a nice #10 WBO ranking.
However, he’s lost two out of his last four fights, but the losses have come against really good fighters in Josesito Lopez and Mauricio Herrera. There’s nothing wrong in Dallas Jr. losing to those guys, especially when he gave them a lot of problems in the process of losing.
Dallas Jr. has won all of his other fights on his resume, and he’s got some impressive wins over the likes of Javier Castro, Miguel Gonzalez, Lenin Arroyo, Genaro Trazanos and Larard Lane. Those are quality fighters and Dallas Jr. took care of them without any problems.
Matthysse is coming off of a really hard fight against Ajose Olusegun last September. Matthysse won the fight by a 10th round TKO, but it was one of those fights where he had to take a lot of punishment in winning. This wasn’t an easy fight by any stretch of the imagination and Matthysse can’t afford too many more of those types of fights without it wearing him down. Hopefully he can take care of business quickly against Dallas Jr. so that he can go into a possible Danny Garcia fight without being worn out.