Few people have experienced the whiplash of life’s highs and lows the way Subriel Matias has. He’s been on the brink of death after being shot, and a peak athletic specimen. Behind bars for 19 months, and a free man making six figure purses. Finding violence in the streets to getting paid to create it legally. An unheralded novice with minimal amateur schooling and a prospect with world title potential.

Those wild narrative swings haven’t stopped even during his era as an elite 140-pound fighter. Matias has been the fighter fans liked to say your favorite fighter was afraid of, and also your favorite fighter who fans liked to say wasn’t as good as you thought. After his loss to Petros Ananyan in 2020, he bounced back with five consecutive knockout wins, one of them netting him a world title, another in defense of it.

But amidst the debate, there has always been a current of undeniable truth running through Matias. Whatever your opinion of him, there’s no shroud over Matias in the ring—he’s as straightforward as they come, winning fights with a mix of power, aggression, stamina and an indifference to defense in service of throwing as many punches as possible. Matias appeals to the most primal, fundamental instincts, the walking, punching answer to the question of “what if you just went for it every single round?”

For one fight last year, his title-losing effort against Liam Paro, he was a dialled down version of himself—still aggressive, still powerful, but far less active than usual. However, the real you tends to come out when you go back home, and Matias looked like the scariest version of himself once again in his eighth round TKO victory over Gabriel Gollaz on Saturday night.

The bout was held in Matias’ hometown of Fajardo, Puerto Rico, in the Coliseo Tomas Dones (the same venue he turned professional in), in the main event of a Big Time Boxing USA broadcast on DAZN presented by his new co-promoter Salita Promotions and home promoter Fresh Productions. By the end of the night, the term “Subriel Matias fight” was the seventh top trending search on Google, alongside Gervonta Davis vs. Lamont Roach, and other need-to-know queries like “Wordle Answer” and “Oscar Nominations 2025.”

It turned out that the Matias he and his fans were looking for was indeed still there. From the opening bell, the torrid, borderline reckless pace had retuned as he brazenly walked to Gollaz. In the first two rounds, Matias offered some cursory defensive maneuvers, switching out of his frame stance from time to time to offer a cross-arm block or two, but seemed to decide at a certain point that he’d prefer to just move his hands towards Gollaz’s face exclusively instead.

The version of Gollaz in the ring on Saturday night would have given most 140-pounders alive serious issues, as he had over his last five bouts in defeating a variety of fighters on the fringes of contention. However, even as he landed flush, arrow-straight shots from long range, Matias took them without attempting to avoid then, instead seeing it as a measly tax to pay in order to get to the inside and do his own, more damaging work.

These are the conundrums opponents face when in the ring with a dialed-in version of Matias. Slick defensive fighters play a game of giving and taking away, presenting a target that isn’t actually available so as to land something on their opponent once they’ve missed and are out of position. They dangle a carrot that looks so juicy that their foe has to try to take a bite. In essence, this is what Matias does, except without bothering to evade what’s coming at him. Matias presents a target that is so easy to hit that his opponent naturally does so, but that’s the trap: He has wagered that he will get the better of every exchange, both in volume and effect, even if it doesn’t look like it at first. Before his opponents know it, they’re starting to break down despite probably thinking they’re having success, and he’s not slowing down.

If one were to show Gollaz’s punches and Matias’ punches to a boxing trainer, they would laud the former’s technique. If you showed them, in a vacuum, to most anyone, they would justifiably think that Gollaz’s are doing more damage. When Matias throws, it’s an effortless short delivery that can sometimes look like he’s just tapping the hand pads warming up in the locker room.

However, by the end of the fourth round of getting hit with those shots, Gollaz’s face was a disaster. His right eye was gruesomely cut above the eyelid, and his left eye had signs of discoloring and swelling as well. The ringside physician examined Gollaz’s eye and allowed him to continue for the fifth round. Matias shrugged and let out a sigh, but not one that seemed to be rooted in the simple frustration that he hadn’t been awarded a TKO victory quite yet. Rather, it was the body language of someone who didn’t want to inflict any additional punishment to an already horrifically wounded opponent if he didn’t have to.

It was hard to decouple Matias’ body language from the unfortunate reality that he’d been involved in a ring tragedy in the past, as his 2019 bout against Maxim Dadashev led to his heartbreaking passing. In 2023, Matias told The Ring’s Keith Idec that “the sorrow never leaves (him).” It’s yet another dichotomy when it comes to Matias. He is at once perhaps the most stoically violent operator in the sport, and also one filled with empathy. At times over the next few rounds, it felt as though Matias was perhaps holding something back, as he periodically glanced at the referee and doctor as if to ask, “isn’t this enough?”

Before the eighth round, social media manager Kel Dansby heard the exchange in Matias’ corner, in which they told him, “it’s either him or it’s you.” In other words, it’s best for everyone if you end the fight—it gets you out of danger, and may even save Gollaz from another five rounds of injurious blows with unknown consequences. Matias flipped the switch, went into mercenary mode, and after a right hand and a left hook, Gollaz collapsed to a knee, as his corner implored him to stay down for the count of ten.

And so the Matias pendulum swung back again. With the win, he is the mandatory challenger for Richardson Hitchins’ IBF title, the bogeyman back on the doorstep.