WBC light welterweight champion Regis Prograis says he’s fine-tuning his technical skills because he plans on trying to defeat challenger Devin Haney at his own game by outboxing on December 9th in their headliner on DAZN PPV at the Chase Center in San Francisco, California.
This wouldn’t be the first time that Prograis messed up with a faulty game plan, as he wrecked his chances of beating Josh Taylor in 2019 by fighting to his strengths by brawling with him on the inside.
Prograis then waited until the later rounds to make adjustments to take the fight to the outside, which cost him the fight.
It’s surprising that Prograis (29-1, 24 KOs) isn’t thinking of using the success that Vasily Lomachenko had against Haney (30-0, 15 KOs) as a blueprint to follow because Loma did well in the championship rounds when he was pressuring him last May.
Lomachenko lost the fight by boxing Haney in the first half of the fight and then letting his foot off the gas in the twelfth when the contest was in the balance.
Prograis expects to be superior to Haney
“I’m a two-time world champion. I really struggled, and I’m not saying he had it given to him, but given to him way easier than what I had,” said Regis Prograis to Fight Hub TV about Devin Haney being a manufactured fighter.
“He had trouble with Vasily [Lomachenko], but I’m not counting on the same thing,” said Prograis about Haney being vulnerable to pressure. “If it’s there, and if that pressure s**t is going to be there, what I’ve been working on is skill.”
It’s crazy that Prograis doesn’t want to use pressure against Haney because that approach would seem like the best way to defeat him.
“I feel like I’m going to be superior in every aspect of the fight. I feel like you’re going to see a different me on December 9th,” said Prograis. “I think he does have a chip on his shoulder and wants to prove how good he is.
“I want to think that he hits harder than he does. So if I get in there, and he doesn’t hit that hard, I’ll be surprised by that. But I don’t want to go in there and think, ‘He doesn’t hit that hard. He hits soft,’ and then I go in there, and I’m surprised. ‘Oh, he actually has power.’
“So, I’m going the other way around. For me, I’m training for everything. I do feel it,” said Prograis about his belief that Haney will go down and won’t get back up. “I keep seeing it. It’s just something that is stuck in my mind I’m going to hurt him. I’m prepared for twelve rounds of pain.
“I can’t get that out of my mind that he’s going to go down, and he’s going to get hurt what I’m doing with my sparring partners. I feel like if I hit him with those same punches with eight-ounce gloves on, it’s not going to be pretty.
“That’s crazy, just like HBO,” said Prograis, reacting to the news of Showtime getting out of boxing at the end of 2023. “Boxing always turns over. Something is going to happen. We still have this platform on DAZN.
“Something else is going to pop up. Boxing is always going to be around. People are going to pay to see two people fight each other. Two people that are good, people are always going to pay to see that. If it’s not Showtime, it’s going to be another platform.
“People are going to buy what they buy,” said Prograis about Floyd Mayweather Jr. potentially doing an exhibition on the same date as his fight with Haney on December 9th, with Keith Thurman fighting Danny Garcia in a rematch.
“The first week, we already sold 9,000 tickets. I don’t know how many this arena holds, but I feel like we’re going to have a packed house no matter what. I think we can coexist with Floyd. Obviously, he’s a bigger name, but I feel like we can do it.
“I think it’s still going to be a packed house. Yeah, I think the pay-per-view might be affected, but it’s still going to be a packed house,” said Prograis.
