By Elisinio Castillo
Argentina's Lucas Matthysse (37-4, 34KOs), 34-years-old, is targeting a return in early 2017. He says his next fight will likely take place on a date in March or April.
Matthysse feels refreshed, rededicated and he wants to invade the welterweight division with a deep motivation to claim a world title.
The hard-hitter has been out of the ring since last October, when he suffered the first knockout defeat of his career at the hands of Viktor Postol at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Matthysse was slated to return to the ring earlier this year, against Mauricio Herrera, as part of the Canelo Alvarez-Amir Khan pay-per-view undercard back in May, but the boxer withdrew from the fight. At the time, Matthysse stated that his eye injury, suffered in the fight with Postol, had yet to fully heal.
Months later there were rumors that he might follow his countryman Marcos Maidana into retirement, but Matthysse says he was simply burned out from the years upon years of going from one training camp to the next. He turned pro in 2004 and stayed quite active with at least two fights or more for every year that he's been in the paid ranks. And, the last few years of his career has been played out in the United States and that involves a lot of traveling.
A few weeks ago he cleared up those retirement rumors, making it clear that he intended to resume his career in 2017.
"To be a world champion - that's the goal. I will return, and hopefully regain a belt at welterweight - where I'll probably feel more comfortable. The motivation is to capture a title, that's what I want," said Matthysse.
"I was tired of training, nothing more than that [for my long layoff]. I needed to rest the body and the mind. I have always wanted to fight but I also know what it means in terms of preparation. I have plans to do a fight between March and April and by the end of the year I will be traveling to the US. The rest really did me good and now I can turn to boxing."