Matthyse to return from layoff

Argentine slugger Lucas Matthysse will return from a 19-month layoff in one of the featured bouts on the Canelo Alvarez-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. undercard in Las Vegas, Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez told ESPN on Thursday. Matthysse, who is moving up from the junior welterweight division to welterweight, will take on an opponent to be determined. The fight card will take place May 6 at T-Mobile Arena and will be televised on HBO Pay-Per-View.

"Matthysse is definitely going to be on the undercard. He's making his comeback. He's had his break," Gomez said. Matthysse (37-4, 34 KOs) is a former interim junior welterweight titleholder. He has been out of action since October 2015 because of an eye injury suffered during a 10th-round knockout loss to Viktor Postol in a vacant junior welterweight world title fight.

"His eye needed to get better. He had the fracture, but he's been cleared," Gomez said. "He's looking good, he's feeling good and he's been training. He's anxious to fight again." Matthysse, 34, was one of the most destructive fighters in the sport just a few years ago, scoring brutal knockouts of Humberto Soto, Olusegun Ajose, Michael Dallas Jr. and Lamont Peterson during a four-fight stretch against quality opponents in 2012 and 2013. Then came a unanimous decision loss to then-unified world champion Danny Garcia in an upset.

Matthysse won his next three fights in a row, including an 11th-round knockout of John Molina Jr. in the 2014 Boxing Writers Association of America fight of the year and a decision against former world titleholder Ruslan Provodnikov, before the knockout loss to Postol.

"We're looking at opponents for Matthysse now," Gomez said. "He's had the break he needed and now he's excited to come back. He wants to go after a world title at welterweight and fight some of the big names. It's a strong division. He wants to win a world title and this is the start."

The rest of the card is not set, but one of the fighters Gomez said could appear, depending on the matchup, is welterweight contender Sadam Ali (24-1, 14 KOs), the 2008 U.S. Olympian from New York. Ali, 28, has won his past two fights since suffering his only defeat, a ninth-round knockout to Jessie Vargas for a vacant welterweight world title 11 months ago.