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The big boxing news from the last week was the Manny Pacquiao vs Floyd Mayweather fight finally coming to fruition, however another highly anticipated bout was announced yesterday.
Ruslan Provodnikov and Lucas Matthysse will meet on April 18 in Verona, New York, in a bout that has fight of the year written all over it.
Both men are in line to face lineal champion Danny Garcia, and the winner may get the bout should Garcia stay at 140 pounds.
Provodnikov (24-3 17 KOs) was a relative unknown before his fight of the year candidate with Timothy Bradley in 2013, where he dropped a close decision. He backed it up with an impressive 10th-round stoppage over Mike Alavarado, but then dropped a decision last June to Chris Algieri, despite having Algieri down twice in the first round.
In his last outing, he beat an over-the-hill Jose Luis Castillo in five rounds in Russia last November.
Many expected (myself included) Lucas Matthysse (36-3 34 KOs) to dethrone Garcia in their September 2013 meeting. The Argentinian was on a tear after disputed decision losses to Zab Judah and Devon Alexander before the loss to Garcia (on the undercard of Mayweather versus Saul Alvarez) with his three-round demolition of Lamont Peterson by far the most impressive scalp on his record.
Matthysse bounced back in 2014 with knockouts over John Molina Jr and undefeated Roberto Ortiz to put himself back in the upper echelon of the division.
Both men come to fight and fight hard so this should be a war of attrition. The bout is being televised on HBO in the USA so hopefully Main Event doesn’t leave it up to Australian boxing fans to stay off social media and wait for a YouTube link in order to enjoy this fight.
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