1/27/2018- Inglewood, Ca.- In NO way did the fights at the Fab Forum last night elicit memories of bygone years, at LEAST not the aired ones. From what I read though, there were some nice scraps on the undercard. However, from what aired on HBO, the main event, featuring Argentinean Lucas Matthysee (38-4-1NC-35 kos) and Thailand’s Tiwa Kiram (38-0-28K) was a REAL snoozer for the better part of eight rounds, even drawing boos from a crowd that figured, given the ko percentages of these two, there would be some serious leather flying. Matthysee, once one of the most feared bangers at ’40 didn’t look like much as he stalked the bigger man around the ring but not landing much. He looked slow and not even close to the guy he once was. Perhaps ’47 is too big for him. This was for the vacant WBA welterweight strap. My advice to Lucas is to go BACK to ’40 because I don’t see him being competitive with the top guys at welter. How the hell Kiram ko’d 28 ANYTHING, is a puzzle to me. He seemed to outweigh Lucas by at least ten ponds but sure didn’t seem to punch very hard. The only drama came between rounds five and six when Kiram’s corner man was trying to feed him some brown stuff from a little cup. Shades of Panama (“no, the one I mixed”) Brown. I don’t know what that crap was but it wasn’t doing Kiram any justice, ANYWAY. This was about the same time the boos started. Basically, this fight sucked. Suddenly in the eighth round, after realizing he was pretty much shadow boxing, Matthysee decided to pick up his attack, dropping Kiram with what appeared to be a so-so right hand. Upon rising, , another so-so shot from the left side landed on the Thai’s jaw and after a few seconds of contemplation, he dropped as if he’d been shot. Lucas called out all the top guns but I’m sure wiser minds will prevail, belt or NO belt, he‘s too small for the top ‘47’s. Ref Raul Caeiz warned Kiram often for holding but apparently missed all the rabbit punches Lucas landed.
In the co feature, the talented Jorge Linares (43-3-27) didn’t have too much to deal with in Mercito Gesta in a battle for the WBA and RING belts. Yeah, Gesta (31-1-2D-17K) was there all night and was in good shape but a threat, he was NOT. He was pretty elusive for the most part and made Linares miss a lotta’ shots. His counters were nothing to cause concern for Linares. There were no drops in the bout in which the scores read 118-110/118-110/117-111 all in favor of Linares, who wants Mikey Garcia and Vasyl Lomachenko badly.