Regis Prograis has had Fight of the Year contenders with Josh Taylor, in 2019, and, just last month, Joseph Diaz Jnr.
The two-time 140lbs champion, desperate to claim the title for a third time, is 36 and now 30-3 (24 KOs).
The Diaz bout, in Chicago, was packed with thrills and spills, and Taylor – in London at the O2 Arena – was a two-way war.
“There were two great fights,” Prograis told BoxingScene. “It [the Taylor fight] was just a different stage in my career. I felt that that Josh Taylor fight was a little hard. I mean, that was, I think that was a little harder of a fight because of his size and I think he was a better boxer. I mean, with Jojo, it was like, I just felt like I boxed him real easy, but that’s what my coach said. Like, ‘just stay on the outside, just box him easy.’ But I like to fight. That’s what I like to do. Even the same thing with Josh Taylor. I was outboxing him real easy, but then I just wanted to get on the inside. I don’t know why I want to feel the punches. I want to fight, but I didn’t have to do that. I made the fight closer than what it should have been but it was the same type of fight, kind of going back and forth. But I felt like with Jojo, I really outboxed him a lot easier than I did with Josh Taylor.”
But for the veteran from New Orleans, who trains out of Las Vegas, it was further indication of how much he still wants the glory of boxing, and that third title.
“I still love it, man. It makes me want it more, to be honest,” he added.
“It really does make me want it. It doesn’t make me think like, ‘oh, I don’t want this no more.’ It really makes me want it more. I don’t know why. It was kind of fun. It was fun to me. You know, that Josh Taylor fight was a fun fight to me. This fight was a fun fight to me. Like we just, we went at it and I think that’s what people want to see. It’s exciting to me that people are even considering it a Fight of the Year candidate. I like that. That’s kind of what I got in boxing for, for the excitement.”
Scottish hero Taylor recently had to exit the sport with eye injuries suffered in the sport, and that began with the Prograis war.
“Of course, you never want to risk your long-term health just for boxing,” said Prograis. “A lot of fighters did it over the past and you never want to do that. That’s cool to him. Congrats to him. I wish him well on the next stage of his career, or whatever he wants to do in his life. I’m just not there yet., I know one day I will be in. I told people, ‘I don’t know how many more camps I have left in me because it’s not the fights that’s hard, it’s just the camps.’ The camps are long. They’re hard. I’m away from my family now and my kids are getting bigger. I do want to be there for my kids and whatever they do in sports, school, I want to be there. I miss a lot of things. I feel like that’ll push me to retire me more than anything else.”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, is on The Ring ratings panel and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
