LABELS are something that all of us like to attach to fighters and when you look through the top 10 or 15 of boxing’s many weight classes there are those who fit the following:
The pay-per-view star
The dangerman
The veteran
The underrated
The who needs them club
The untested
That’s a half dozen words where two could currently be used to describe Puerto Rico’s Subriel Matias: the dangerman and the who needs them club.
Last night at the Coliseo Tomas Dones in Matias’ home town of Fajardo, also that of national boxing greats Felix Trinidad and John John Molina, the former IBF super lightweight world champion dished out a beating to Mexico’s Gabriel Gollaz Valenzuela in a final eliminator for a shot at his old title. The 32-year-old’s eighth round technical knockout victory rewarded him with a mandatory title shot, which put champion Richardson Hitchins in his sights.
The victory caps off a rollercoaster 12-month period which began with Matias joining Matchroom in a ‘multi-fight co-promotional deal’
“Subriel is one of the most exciting fighters on the planet, with action guaranteed every time he fights, and as a World champion at 140lbs, the fights out there for him are massive,” his new co-promoter Eddie Hearn said in the press release.
First up for Matias was a June defence against Liam Paro, a steely, determined Aussie who went in as the underdog against the Puerto Rican force of nature but left the country as the new champion. The challenger took advantage of the traditional slow-starting Matias and never looked back, boxing his way to a unanimous decision win.
Paro said afterwards he was “speechless,” just as everyone else was in the Coliseo Juan Aubin Cruz Abreu in Manati. Beforehand Matias had built up a 21-fight record with 20 of those wins ending inside the distance. The only blot on the record was a 10-round points loss to Armenia’s Petros Ananyan on the Wilder-Fury 2 card in February 2020. A night where Matias was also dropped in the seventh round. During a virtual press conference three years later he admitted that the 2020 version of himself, “…was smoking a lot of pot. I had vices that didn’t allow me to be at a hundred percent.”
The defeat to Paro was “humiliating” in the ex-champion’s own words post-fight. All of a sudden he was no longer the boogeyman. He had to rebuild for a second time and five months later Matias was back in Puerto Rico and against Roberto Ramirez, who had lost to William Zepeda in five rounds at lightweight four years earlier, who was given the unenviable task of trying to deal with a knockout artist with a point to prove. Ramirez lasted less than two rounds.
At the beginning of 2025 it looked as though Matias would be getting a shot at Teofimo Lopez. Matias told Boxing News he hoped to face him at the end of March and during the conversation described the WBO champion as “coward”. Lopez believed the contender not to be a “worthy” opponent and refuted any claims he turned the fight down.
Also during January Matias and Gabriel Gollaz Valenzuela had been ordered to meet in an IBF title final eliminator. By the beginning of February the fight was on. “This fight is going to be a classic,” the Mexican said in a press release. Matias, now aligned with a new co-promoter in Dmitry Salita, was using the advantage of fighting in his hometown as “extra motivation.”
Last night, despite another slow opening round, Matias reminded the world why he is one of the most violent men in the 10-stone division. He didn’t blind Valenzuela with the sweet science but his effortless, jolting shots made such a mess of his opponent’s right eye that the fight could have been stopped earlier than it was. Valenzuela’s courage and the ringside physician allowed him to fight on, but the punishment worsened, and finally the fight was called off in round eight at 2 mins 55 seconds.
IBF champion Richardson Hitchins presents a different challenge to Matias, however, his jab and counter punching, for example, won’t allow the former champ to simply walk him down and beat him up. However, it will all hinge on how Hitchins deals with the hurting hands travelling at him with lethal intentions.
Whatever happens in the coming months, Subriel Matias is most definitely back and rightly wearing his label as the super lightweight dangerman. While that may not be good news for some of his rivals, it most certainly is for the sport.
