Saturday night on HBO, boxing was at the forefront with a double header featuring Lucas Martin Matthysse vs Ruslan Provodnikov and Terence Crawford vs Thomas Dulorme.
Matthysse and Provodnikov faced off in the first match from the Turning Stone Casino in New York, and the two men battled hard for twelve rounds. In the end, Matthysse won a razor thin (114-114, 115-113, 115-113) majority decision. Both men are two of the top Super Lightweights around, and with no belt on the line, they basically fought for bragging rights. Provodnikov was cut early from an accidental headbutt, but he kept on fighting. Matthysse fought back the whole time, and is now in line for a bigger fight. For Provodnikov, this is his second loss in a row for him when fighting on American broadcast television. For his camp as well, this is the second match that has not gone his way when it goes to the judges. The “Siberian Rocky” fought with his usual guts and attacking style, but Chris Algieri did it first and now Matthysse – they beat him at his own game.
In the second fight of the double header, once beaten Thomas Dulorme promised to do the same thing to Terence Crawford, and that is beat him at his own game. But for Crawford, who was (25-0) and moving up in weight and leaving a WBO Lightweight Championship behind, he is coming off a stellar 2014 that sees him on everyone’s pound for pound lists. He has 17 KO’s to his credit, but can also box with the best of them as he has a deep amateur background as well. Dulorme could not stay with Crawford, who outboxed him in the early going. By round six, Crawford started flooring Dulorme, three times in all.
This gives Crawford the WBO version of the Super Lightweight world championship, the second weight class Crawford wins a world title in. Now (26-0), Crawford may hear talk of a potential match-up with Lucas Martin Matthysse. Since the network aired the two fihts on the same broadcast from different locations, and both men are in the same weight class, it would seem that a match-up between the two winners may be brewing. Also in the mix at that weight as a potential foe for both men is Adrien ‘The Problem” Broner.
