This isn’t the same Subriel Matias that arrived in Las Vegas nearly four years ago for his fight with Petros Ananyan.
Matias admits he wasn’t taking training seriously enough back then. He partially attributed his lackluster performance in his first fight against Ananyan to smoking marijuana and other “vices” that kept the Puerto Rican knockout artist from reaching his potential.
The hard-hitting Matias opened as a whopping 50-1 favorite to beat Armenia’s Ananyan, but he was dropped during the seventh round and stunningly lost a 10-round unanimous decision on the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder undercard in February 2020 at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Matias came back to drop Ananyan in the ninth round of their rematch and beat him by technical knockout before the 10th round of their January 2022 bout began at Borgata Event Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Matias (19-1, 19 KOs) learned an invaluable lesson from how he prepared prior to the lone loss of his career against Ananyan (18-3-2, 9 KOs). Changes in his habits have helped him win the IBF junior welterweight title and make him confident that he’ll fend off a punishing puncher, mandatory challenger Shohjahon Ergashev (23-0, 20 KOs), in their 12-round, 140-pound title fight on the David Benavidez-Demetrius Andrade undercard Saturday night at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino’s Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas.
“The Subriel Matias that you saw in 2020 is nothing like the one that you’re gonna see right now,” Matias said through a translator during a virtual press conference recently. “Like right now, I’m at 300 percent compared to the one that was in Vegas in 2020, where I admit that, you know, that I was smoking a lot of pot. I had vices that didn’t allow me to be at a hundred percent. But now, 300 percent and ready to show the fans that the champ is here and ready to put on a great show.”
BetMGM sportsbook has made Matias more than a 3-1 favorite over Uzbekistan’s Ergashev. Matias realizes, however, that the strong southpaw will be dangerous during the second bout of a four-fight Showtime Pay-Per-View telecast (8 p.m. ET; 5 p.m. PT; $74.99).
“I can’t say that I consider myself the favorite,” Matias said. “What I do have is the confidence in myself after what I’ve done in training camp. But to say that I’m a big favorite would be assuming a lot of things considering that boxing is unpredictable. Look at what Ananyan did in 2020. So, I am not about to underestimate my opponent, and I am gonna go out there and, you know, bear the fruits of my preparation.”
The 31-year-old Matias will fight in Las Vegas for the first time since Ananyan upset him. He’ll also make his first defense of the IBF junior welterweight title he won when he stopped previously unbeaten Argentinean contender Jeremias Ponce (31-1, 21 KOs) after the fifth round of his last fight, which took place February 25 at The Armory in Minneapolis.
“Most importantly,” Matias said, “God has given me the opportunity to come back to Las Vegas and redeem myself, fix the mistake that I made in 2020.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.