Prograis: I'll Hurt Taylor; He Won't Be Able To Hurt Me!

It’s rather simple, according to Regis Prograis.

He’ll be able to take Josh Taylor’s power Saturday night, but Taylor won’t withstand his hardest shots. Prograis expects to exploit what he considers Taylor’s defensive deficiencies and is confident he can stop the unbeaten Scottish southpaw in their World Boxing Super Series 140-pound final at O2 Arena in London.

The 30-year-old Prograis noticed those flaws while watching footage of Taylor’s victories over former 140-pound champions Viktor Postol and Ivan Baranchyk. The 28-year-old Taylor won each of those 12-round bouts by unanimous decision, but Prograis is certain Ukraine’s Postol and Russia’s Baranchyk hurt Taylor.

“He gets hit by flush punches,” Prograis told BoxingScene.com. “That’s the main thing that I saw. For me, the fight is simple. If he can hit me, he’s not gonna be able to hurt me. And then, if I hit him, I’m gonna be able to hurt him. And he gets hit by flush punches. There’s a difference from when you get hit, and when you get hit with clean, flush punches. When he was in with Baranchyk, I was seeing Baranchyk hit him with a lot of clean, flush punches.

“That’s why I told [Taylor] that you can’t do that with me. Because I know I hit too hard and, at the same time, you know, I’m accurate. I’m way more accurate. I think I’ll clip him out. It’s not even about giving the game plan up. It’s just like that he gets hit by big, flush punches. That’s the main thing.”

Prograis (24-0, 20 KOs), the WBA super lightweight champion, is a slight favorite to defeat Taylor (15-0, 12 KOs), who won the IBF junior welterweight title from Baranchyk in the WBSS semifinals May 18 at SSE Hydro in Glasgow.

“I think I’ll stop him,” Prograis said. “I don’t know if it will happen, but I really think that I could. I really think I could stop him. He been hurt a few times. I definitely think I can stop him, just because he’s been hurt by Postol, who has like 10 knockouts out of 30-something fights. He got hurt by Postol (31-2, 12 KOs) and he got hurt by Baranchyk (20-1, 13 KOs), and I really think that I could stop him. Now, I don’t know if it’s gonna happen. But I really feel like it’s definitely a big possibility.”

DAZN’s coverage of the Prograis-Taylor card is scheduled to start Saturday at 2 p.m. EDT/11 a.m. PDT. Sky Sports Box Office will offer the Prograis-Taylor show via pay-per-view in the United Kingdom (7 p.m. BST; £19.95).

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.