By Nicholas Samuilov, notifight.com

Argentine junior welterweight Lucas Matthysse has confirmed to BoxingScene.com/NotiFight.com that an illness forced him to withdraw from his scheduled fight with former three division champion Erik Morales. The contest was the co-feature to the Floyd Mayweather-Victor Ortiz showdown on September 17th in Las Vegas. Matthysse gives up the opportunity to fight for the vacant WBC junior welterweight title.

Matthysse (28-2-, 26 KOs) has been training in La Pampa, Argentina, and several days ago he began to feel ill. Since Monday, the boxer has been unable to train for the fight with Morales (51-7, 35 KOs).

"I feel very hurt. This was the fight of my life. But I just couldn't get up to fight. I am not able to. I apologize to the [WBC] for this unexpected and painful situation," said Matthysse.