Subriel Matias wanted Richardson Hitchins to fight him next.

Matias is the IBF’s No. 1 contender for the junior welterweight title held by Hitchins. Hitchins outboxed Australia’s Liam Paro to win that belt on Dec. 7 in Matias’ native Puerto Rico.

Matias hasn’t been named the IBF’s mandatory challenger for its championship, which enabled Hitchins to schedule an optional title defense against another Australian George Kambosos Jr.

Sydney’s Kambosos, who is ranked third among the IBF’s contenders in the 140-pound division, will challenge Hitchins in a 12-round main event DAZN will stream June 14 from The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Dmitriy Salita, Matias’ co-promoter, hopes Hitchins’ fight against Kambosos (22-3, 10 KOs) is the first of two hometown title defenses.

If Matias (22-2, 22 KOs) wins the WBC 140-pound crown from Dominican southpaw Alberto Puello (24-0, 10 KOs) on The Ring’s pay-per-view card July 12 at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, N.Y., Salita will push for a championship unification clash with Hitchins (19-0, 7 KOs) before year's end.

“With Subriel connecting to New York City in this fight July 12th,” Salita told The Ring, “and Hitchins beating the guy that beat Matias, it kind of builds towards a bigger fight later in the year. For a Puerto Rican fighter to really live up to his potential, both as a fighter and as a star, he has to connect in New York City. We’ve seen it with [Miguel] Cotto and with [Felix] Trinidad.

“Subriel has never fought in New York City and has never done that. Even though he’s only gonna have this one fight there, I believe it’s gonna help him a lot in gaining new fans, becoming an honorary New Yorker and then fighting Hitchins, who grew up in Brooklyn and trained at Cops & Kids [Boxing Gym] in Flatbush. It could be a great fight towards the end of the year.”

Hitchins, 27, is The Ring’s No. 1 contender for junior welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez (22-1, 13 KOs), who owns The Ring and WBO belts. Puello, 30, is ranked No. 2 by The Ring and Matias, 33, is sixth.

Puello’s second defense of his WBC belt against the eighth-ranked Matias will be one of four fights featured on pay-per-view July 12. Two more 12-round bouts – super middleweight contender Edgar Berlanga (23-1, 18 KOs) against Hamzah Sheeraz (21-0-1, 17 KOs) and WBC lightweight champ Shakur Stevenson (23-0, 11 KOs) versus William Zepeda (33-0, 27 KOs) – are also part of that card.

That event, “Ring III,” will be held at a 14,000-seat tennis stadium that is one of the venues for the U.S. Open each summer. Salita, a retired junior welterweight contender from Brooklyn, thinks Matias-Hitchins would work well as part of a future Ring card in New York.

“His Excellency is doing great fights in iconic venues,” Salita said in reference to Turki Alalshikh. “I’m very interested to see if [Hitchins-Matias] happens where it would be. I believe it’s one of the fights that would make boxing fans in New York City excited about the sport again.”