Subriel Matias and his team are prepared to head back to the greater New York City area for his next fight.
BoxingScene has confirmed that Fresh Productions now plans to stage Matias’ WBC mandatory 140lbs title defense against Dalton Smith on January 10, either in a New York City venue or in Newark, New Jersey. The move comes amidst previously explored plans to host the fight in Puerto Rico.
Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, NYC’s Madison Square Garden Theater and the Prudential Center in Newark are all possible destinations for the matchup.
El Nuevo Dia, Puerto Rico’s leading news publication, was the first to report the development.
In lieu of a return home, Matias, 23-2 (22 KOs) will now apparently fight in the East Coast for the second straight time. He claimed the WBC junior welterweight title in a July 12 majority decision win over previously unbeaten Alberto Puello in Queens, New York.
The win came on a show financed by Riyadh Season head Turki Alalshikh, who had Matias and England’s Smith face off in the ring immediately after Matias’ victory. It was insisted by Alalshikh that the fight would take place on his November 22 show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
However, that claim fell miserably short of coming to fruition.
The two sides failed to reach terms for their ordered bout, which then went to a purse bid hearing. Fresh Productions, Matias’ career-long promoter, bid $1,900,000 to win promotional rights, outpacing the $1,710,000 offer posted by Matchroom, Smith’s promoter.
It was teased at the time that the fight would take place in December. The plan was to load the proposed show with other Fresh Production boxers, including former bantamweight titlist Emmanuel Rodriguez, former title challenger Jeyvier Cintron, Alfredo Santiago and Néstor Bravo. Orengo still plans to include all of the fighters on the show, though the venue remains up in the air.
Smith, 18-0 (13 KOs), enters his first career title fight which also serves as his U.S. debut. He worked his way to the top spot of the WBC 140lbs rankings through a serious of eliminators and regional sanctioning bodies at stake.
The first such move towards title contention came in a fifth-round stoppage of former title challenger Jose Zepeda last March 23 in his Sheffield hometown. In his most recent start, Smith soundly outpointed Mathieu Germain on April 19 also in Sheffield. The win cemented his position as the next line for the WBC title.
Matias previously held the IBF 140lbs title.
His two-year reign ended, ironically, in P.R. where he dropped a 12-round decision to then-unbeaten Liam Paro last June in Manati. The fight was his first on home soil since 2019. He quickly rebounded with a pair of knockout victories in front of his adoring fans which also allowed him to reposition himself for another title shot.
Matias’ title claiming effort over Puello marked the first time he won a fight that went to the scorecards. The only other occasions where he’d gone the distance resulted in each of his two defeats.
The decision to relocate the fight to the U.S. East Coast was in part to test Matias’ marketability in the heavily Puerto Rican-populated region. Economics also played a significant role in the decision, given the fight’s price tag in relation to a typically run independent boxing event in Puerto Rico.
