By Peter Lim
Photo by Hosanna Rull
Making his fifth appearance on Showtime, Regis Prograis (20-0, 17 KOs) takes on former double world titleholder Julius Indongo (21-1, 11 KOs) in Deadwood, SD, on Friday night. The fight is for the interim WBC junior welterweight title, which basically means it is a semifinal bout for the WBC title. The other semifinal will be between Jose Ramirez (21-0, 16 KOs) and Amir Imam (21-1, 18 KOs) next weekend.
Prograis and Indongo are both southpaws. But while Prograis excels at violent exchanges in the trenches, the tall and lanky Indongo is partial to bouncing energetically all over the ring while shooting long punches, often from unexpected angles.
“I have so many tools that I can adjust to anything,” Prograis said. “I know that he’s awkward and a lot of awkward fighters are hard to beat. But I have so many tools and my IQ is high enough to be able to solve him. I don’t study fighters. I know a lot of other fighters study them and say this and say that but I just let my coach Bobby (Benton) do that work and I just go out there and do what I gotta do. After the first couple of rounds, I’ll feel him out and figure out which punch I need to go with.”
Trainer Bobby Benton concurs. As difficult as Indongo’s style is to solve, he will find Prograis’ multidimensionality as much, if not more, of a quandary.
“He’s (Indongo) going to have to adapt to Regis,” Benton said. “Indongo is weird, he’s unorthodox but he’s going to have to adapt to us too. He’s got long left hands and he slingshots so we’re making sure we’re just staying low and staying under all that stuff.”
Prograis, 29, was initially slated to fight another former titleholder, Viktor Postol, on the card, but Postol withdrew a month before the bout due to a hand injury. Indongo, 34, looking to rebound from his title-unification loss to Terence Crawford, eagerly stepped in to fill the void.
“I was ready for Postol but something in the back of my mind told he wasn’t going to fight me,” Prograis said. “But it was a smooth transition. We just changed sparring partners. That was all. I was ready for either one of them.”
Conditioning-wise, Prograis was already close to fight-night shape when the change of opponents occurred. But since Postol was a righty and Indongo a lefty, Benton had to overhaul the original fight plan and find a new set of sparring partners on short notice.
As it turned out, he didn’t have to look far. Up stepped a quartet of Houston-based boxers – a lightweight, a welterweight and two middleweights - all Main Boxing Gym-mates of Prograis, gloves up and ready to spar with him.
Nationally-ranked 165-pound amateur Austin Williams was all too happy to trade punches with Prograis in the gym since Prograis’ training camp happened to coincide with two tournaments in which Williams was competing. Williams won the Southeast Texas Golden Gloves last month and is currently fighting at the Western Elite Qualifiers in Albuquerque.
“What I brought to the table was the height, the slickness and the movement that he needs,” Williams said. “I watched Indongo and I’ve seen how he sets up the left hand and I imitated that in sparring. Regis will be extremely comfortable with the height and size of Indongo. The other thing I presented to Regis was the exact speed, if not more speed. I think I’m faster than Indongo, so Regis should have no problems with his speed.”
“Sparring with Regis is always a great experience because he has one-punch power where he can hurt you or stun you. He can take you out with one punch so the whole time you spar you’ve got to be sharp. I think Regis will end up stopping him inside of eight rounds.”
Also recruited to spar with Prograis was middleweight southpaw Raphael Igbokwe (8-0, 4 KOs) who was impressed with Prograis’ strength, power and tenacity.
“He was just a natural matching up to a bigger guy, so I know he’s going to be a problem for whoever he’s going to face in the future,” Ikbokwe said. “The fact that he’s able to hold his own with someone that’s three divisions above his weight class and still put the pressure and damage tells me that he’s going to do good. I doubt he’s (Indongo) going to make it to the fifth round.”
Switch-hitting lightweight O'Shaquie Foster (12-2, 8 KOs) was the smallest of Prograis’ sparring partners.
“I bring strong performance punches and keep his eyes sharp because Indongo’s wild and throws wide punches,” Foster said. “I’m just keeping everything sharp by throwing a lot of punches.”
“Regis by third round knockout,” Foster added. “Straight left to the head.”
Welterweight Craig Callaghan (17-1, 7 KOs) fights from an orthodox stance, but he put his right foot forward to spar with Prograis. Callaghan’s discombobulation as a southpaw had the exact effect intended to duplicate Indongo’s frenetic herky-jerky movement. And at six-foot-one, Callaghan presented a target similar as Indongo.
“Indongo’s very tall and very long,” Callaghan said. “Sparring as a southpaw was quite awkward for me. If I was a southpaw I would be able to throw the shots straight, very clean and very precise. But because I’m not a southpaw when I try to spar as a southpaw, I end up throwing in kind of an awkward way. So, a lot of the shots that I was throwing are very similar to the shots that Indongo throws in his style of fighting.”
Should Prograis defeat Indongo, he has no preference as to who should win the other WBC semifinal on March 17 – Ramirez or Imam.
“I like both fights. I’d fight either one of them,” Prograis said. “Amir Imam, I know he’s slick, big puncher but I feel I can beat him pretty easily. And Ramirez, he’s a come-forward Mexican. I feel like I could beat him easily also.”
There has been a feeding frenzy since undisputed champion Terence Crawford vacated all four junior welterweight titles to move up to 147 pounds last year. When the dust settles, Prograis hopes to be in line for a superfight.
“There’s definitely a lot of talent coming out of this division because it’s busted right open right now,” Prograis said. “I want to be the biggest name at 140. I feel like me and Mikey Garcia will be a big fight down the line. Right now, a lot of people think I’m the best at 140 and hopefully this fight will prove to more people that I am one of the best at this weight.”
Some media have reported that Prograis hometown of New Orleans has been devoid of a world champion since Willie Pastrano (62-13-8, 14 KOs) held the undisputed light heavyweight crown from 1964-65. Prograis, however, is quick to point out that is not quite accurate.
“Actually, Tiffany Junot was a world champion from New Orleans, so technically they do have (a champion). You’ve got to give Tiffany her credit because she was a world champion. But as far as a man, yes, it’s been like 50 years since New Orleans had a world champion.”
Junot, a former gym-mate of Prograis at Main Boxing, dethroned Mia St. John for a 154-pound title in 2012.
It has been over a decade since Prograis was uprooted from New Orleans to Houston by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It was a silver lining to the massive cloud since the winds blew him to one of the most elite training Meccas of the sweet science. Despite cutting his teeth in Houston, Prograis’ heart will always belong to The Big Easy.
“All my family, all my friends, they still live in New Orleans,” Prograis said. “I can move all around, I can be staying here (Houston) for 30 years but home will always definitely be New Orleans.”