By Bart Barry-
Saturday at StubHub Center in Carson, Calif., undefeated Ukrainian junior welterweight Viktor “The Iceman” Postol stopped favored Argentine Lucas “The Machine” Matthysse at the end of the 10th round of their vacant-title match on HBO. It was good to see a favorite lose a match in 2015, of course, but it was unfortunate to see it happen to Matthysse – who remains a fighter’s fighter even after quitting against Postol.
A few years back, an interesting correspondence with a remarkable Buenos Aires writer named Osvaldo Príncipi included this about Matthysse:
“In everyday life, he is a man who looks to go unnoticed. . . . He seeks anonymity and life in a small city. He’s recently divorced, and that bothers him. . . . He doesn’t like to speak with anyone he doesn’t know. . . . But he knows the bottom of every letter of the boxing trade.”
That correspondence happened, partially, because Matthysse wouldn’t speak to me for a 2,000-word Lucas Matthysse cover feature in the magazine his promoter owns. It was nothing personal, I gathered; Matthysse is obstinately unavailable.
Television is about myth making, and Lucas Matthysse is not. He is unamerican – in the provincial sense of United States as America; Matthysse is, after all, completely American – as anyone currently plying the craft of prizefighting. From Patagonia, a famously harsh climate of wind, temperature volatility, and wind, Matthysse is a professional athlete in a sense similar to the Brothers Klitschko: he understands the requirements of his craft and does not understand boxing as a metaphor for biological or biblical struggle; Matthysse’s profession is violence, yes, but he feels no more compelled to die in the ring than you feel compelled to die in a cubicle. Saturday, when Matthysse felt injured, ever different from feeling hurt, he quit his job the same way you might quit over an unreasonable business partner or thwarting boss. Rest assured he feels no remorse about it.
Could he have continued? Absolutely. He could have risen at the count of 2, if he so chose. He also could have rolled on his back, rubbed his eye a dozen times, risen and run out the clock till his corner stopped the match, or if he were Kermit Cintron, alternately catapulted himself out the ring or nagged-back at the officious Jack Reiss about an unseen headbutt. He did none of these things because, frankly, he is indifferent to your opinion of him. He is a fighter, not an entertainer, and however boxing regards him – it’s impossible, in this era of a thousand belts, to elect to the IBHOF a fighter who went 0-2 in world title fights – he has fulfilled his obligation to fans often enough that 7,000 Southern Californians showed up for his match with a Ukrainian spoiler known to very few.
Of course he was Ukrainian. He was on HBO, and it’s increasingly difficult to find a match on Comrade Hershman’s network that doesn’t feature a man from the former Soviet Bloc. Some of that is justified – especially if the Soviets keep winning – and most of it is Al Haymon, having overthrown the previous HBO regime in what history will call the Berto Putsch, signing every b-side stiff HBO might have otherwise paid Gary Shaw and Lou DiBella to deliver.
Viktor Postol is a gangly foreigner with a displeasing style who nevertheless won the right way Saturday, and that’s that. His style is awful enough that, were he from anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, he’d have been an essential component in the PBC’s Corpus Christi strategy months ago. Instead he wrestled a shopworn Argentine into something like submission.
A fighter like Matthysse can handle about anything in a boxing ring, so long as he’s allowed to enjoy the rejuvenating act of sinking his knuckles in another man’s flesh. Postol denied him that miller’s chance, and Matthysse wilted. Unable to find time or space where he expected it, or even might tolerate it, Matthysse became mentally fatigued – the mind nearly always quitting first in such confrontations. Rising off his stool to hunt a man he couldn’t find and was tired of stalking, Matthysse probably thought about not-getting a rematch with Danny Garcia, not-getting the benefit of scoring doubts against Zab Judah or Devon Alexander, and what logistics would would cook the carrots of a Manny Pacquiao match his promoter Oscar De La Hoya began to sell last week.
Postol’s trainer, Freddie Roach, certainly saw that. He told his charge Matthysse was ready to go, the Argentine’s exhaustion causing hopelessness causing sloppiness, spilling his chin over his front knee as short aggressors are wont to do against tall defenders; all Postol had to do was aim his punch where Matthysse’s head would drop and let Matthysse do the rest. And Matthysse did the rest.
There’s the pain of torn flesh or cramped muscles or wheezing breathlessness, and then there’s injury. Injury is a nonnegotiable signal sent to the central nervous system. One doesn’t make his living in athletics without knowing the difference.
Did Matthysse feel something injurious as the crackle of a snapping bone? No, likely not. Matthysse felt a pain that registered unfamiliar to a memory that comprises thousands of hours of combat, and that sensation, seasoned by a preceding quarter-hour’s hopelessness, brought Matthysse across surrender’s threshold.
Writing of which, Golden Boy Promotions, never adept at developing talent, recently signed Matthysse, a 33-year-old fighter, to a five-year contract of some sort, there’s almost no chance Matthysse will complete. The Argentine cannot beat Postol at 140 pounds, and the power he relies on will not travel seven pounds to welterweight. He may well win Fight of the Year for his April match with Ruslan Provodnikov – as there haven’t been five good main events in 2015 – an award entitling Matthysse to a gainful rematch, or there’s always the other roster members of the abattoir circuit – Brandon Rios, Mike Alvarado, Marcos Maidana, Josesito Lopez, Diego Chavez, increasingly Timothy Bradley – Matthysse could fight anytime in Carson, Calif.
The Machine’s days as an elite draw or pay-per-view potentiality, though, ended Saturday when Postol put an exclamation point on a sentence cowritten by Danny Garcia and Ruslan Provodnikov.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry