Regis Prograis has spoken of his respect for former foe Devin Haney.
Although there was bad blood in the build-up to their bout in December 2023, in San Francisco, Haney won a wide decision, having floored Prograis in round three.
Haney was riding high after that win, but he then was traumatized by the Ryan Garcia experience, and a section of fans turned on him after he pursued legal action against Garcia for using PEDs in their April 2024 fight.
“Listen, I think people don’t know Devin personally, he’s actually cool,” Prograis told BoxingScene. “He’s not a bad dude personally, but I think that it just rubs a lot of people wrong. It’s kind of easy to not like him because Devin is a person that didn’t come from our type of background. Most fighters come from a poor, hood-type of background. Devin didn’t come from that. His dad had money and stuff. So he comes from a different type of background and I think people hate on him a little bit. I don’t hate him. I know Devin is better than what people think. You have to realize, he’s still undefeated. We can do this now with the undefeated thing [argue about what happened with Garcia, having the loss turned into a No Contest], but he’s still a fighter. No matter what, he still takes those punches. He still trains hard. He still does all those things. And I think people that don’t do it, they don’t understand the grind, how hard it is. But he still did that. So, for me, I respect [him]. You don’t have to like somebody, but I feel like you still gotta respect him because he does the same thing we doing.”
Haney is 32-0 (15 KOs) with the No Contest, and having won a bland decision over Jose Ramirez in May, he is paired with WBO world champion Brian Norman Jnr in November in Saudi Arabia.
“That’s a tough fight,” said Prograis, a week after his narrow Fight of the Year contender victory over Jojo Diaz. “That’s a tough fight for him. I take my hat off to him that he’s taking a fight like that.”
