The little-known Argentine sat quietly and respectfully at the final press conference, three days before he will take on Zab Judah in an important IBF Junior Welterweight Eliminator at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ on Saturday night. It was hard to read Matthysse, to decipher if he’s just a Golden Boy sacrificial lamb here for the ballyhooed Judah – or does he have the inner self-belief to spring the huge upset.
I talked with 28-year-old Matthysse, though an interpreter, and the quiet man with the angry eyes, communicated to me a sense that he very well may spell disaster for the happy-go-lucky 33-year-old New Yorker, who jokingly termed this fight “a party, a celebration.”
Matthysse spoke in far more serious language:
“I have no doubt I will come out victorious.”
What will be the key to victory?
“Matthysse: “Body shot.”
On the experience of training with Sergio Martinez?
Matthysse: “It was an unbelievable experience to train with Sergio Martinez. I’ve never seen anybody train like Sergio. I mean, it’s out of imagination how hard Sergio Martinez trains. And it was an inspiration for me, to be in the same stable and work with him together. The guidance of Sergio and all the sparring we did out there – I have enough sparring to make this victory easy. it will definitely be the body shot that will change the night.”
“Sergio trains so hard. That is the biggest study that I never saw before. He has a spiritual will to do so much in one day – that it is indescribable. You cannot even talk about it. You cannot even talk about it. So much that he does in one day. That so many will not do it. I cannot do it myself. But Martinez did. So we’re gonna have a belt.”
