Regis Prograis is determined to get back on the championship trail following his thrilling and hard-earned win over Jojo Diaz.
Prograis and Diaz shared a Fight of the Year contender in Chicago two weeks ago, and Prograis admitted he had felt victory was a foregone conclusion.
That proved not to be the case. He was rocked early, but after 10 rough rounds he emerged victorious.
Now 30-3 (24 KOs), the southpaw – aged 36 – has no desire to call it a day.
“Oh man, I really want to be a champion again,” said the two-time 140lbs ruler.
“I feel like I probably could hang it up after I’m a champion again. That’s the main thing. I really want to do that. I really want to be a champion. There’s never been a three-time, 140-pound champion in history. So if I can do that, that’ll be something I feel I’ve accomplished. I’ll feel like I accomplished what I want to do.”
There remains another reason why Prograis fights on, and that is his passion for the sport.
“I still love it,” he continued. “I know it will be hard [to quit], but I am a historian with the sport and I do understand, you can’t be in the sport too long. I think I just have more longevity just because of my lifestyle. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs. I never did. I don’t do none of that type of stuff. I try to train no matter if I’m in camp. I try to keep my body looking right. I try not to go crazy with the food all the time. Sometimes, of course, I can let loose. I do go crazy… I will fast. So I just try to take care of my body a lot. I’m 36 now. I’m way older than everybody else around me, but my body hasn’t taken that much abuse yet so far. And I can still talk or I can still walk or I can still do a lot of things.
“I can still read and I still have my brains about me. So I know one day it’s not going to be like that, but right now I still can do it. And I understand the training I do is just so hard, one day I know I'm not gonna be able to do that. But right now, I literally still could do it.
“I’m in Vegas training with dudes, they’re 22, 23, you know. And nobody is even close to my age. The oldest person in a gym might be like 28 or 29 besides me and I’m doing all the same things they’re doing. I do understand that one day I’m not going to be able to do it no more, but right now it’s not that time.”
Golden Boy promoted Prograis’ bout with Diaz, and Prograis is now managed by Irishman Brian Peters, whose impressive client list includes Katie Taylor, Teremoana, and Taylor Bevan.
Asked about his next steps and whether he’d entertain Diaz again, Prograis said: “It’s up to my manager. I feel like I want to go past it. I mean, if they really, really want it, maybe we could do it again. But at the same time, I definitely feel like I’m past it. It’s not because of the fight. It’s not because of Jojo, but it’s just because it’s like, all right, you have to look… If I fight Jojo again, I do a two-month training camp, you know? So that’s two months, another two hard months I have to be in training. And then I might fight somebody after that. Who would I fight? Then I might fight somebody else in the next year, year-and-a-half. You know? So that’s what I'm looking at. If that’s the only thing on the table, then I guess that’s what we have to do. If they want to do it, I’m pretty sure they want to do it for the money. But it’s like, for me, I’m kind of looking past it. I want to be a world champion again. It was a good fight, but I just feel like it might be a waste of time for me to do it again.”
Prograis is no stranger to hard nights. He had a fight-of-the-year contender with Josh Taylor back in 2019, and a fight with someone like George Kambosos could be explosive.
“Sounds good,” said Prograis. “That’s not a bad fight. Listen, I’m cool.”
Going into the Diaz fight, there was talk that Prograis could meet the winner of the main event between Oscar Duarte and Kenneth Sims, but it was not as cut and dried for Prograis as that.
“I thought so too,” Prograis said, of getting into position to face the winner. “But I think Duarte is going to move on to… I think that was an eliminator, so now he’s in line for the WBC. I know they want him to be a world champ, but I was supposed to fight Duarte so I’m definitely interested in fighting him, especially if he becomes a world champion, for sure. If he can get that shot at the belt and get that, I’ll definitely be interested in fighting him.
“But I wasn’t interested in fighting the winner. I was only interested in fighting Duarte. Duarte won, but I wasn’t interested in fighting Kenny Sims because we trained together. Kenny trains with me at the same gym. We all have the same coach. We trained in the same gym in Vegas. So obviously I wasn’t interested in fighting him.
“But since Duarte won, then yeah, I’ll be interested in fighting him, especially if he gets a belt for sure.”
There are other options, like Jose Ramirez, Arnold Barboza… “Yeah, everybody’s there,” Prograis added. “I mean, we’re all in the same stable. So yeah, for sure. All those guys are there.”
Prograis is hoping for at least one more outing this year, around November or December, but he admits time away from his home and family in training is getting tougher.
The boxing grind is tough and taxing, but the fight remains an addiction.
“I love it. I still love boxing,” he said.
“I started boxing late. So I did a lot of stuff in the streets and all that. And then now I started boxing and I have that energy about me that I just love it. I keep wanting to do it.
“If God wants me to put them down before [winning a title] three times then that’s what I have to do… I’m a big believer in God. And I feel like God always guides me to the right thing. So if God wants to tell me, ‘Look, sit it down, that’s it, leave it alone,’ then that’s what I’ll do. But right now I just don’t feel like it’s there.
“I always feel like I’m hungry when I don't have the belt. Once I get the belt again, I probably won’t be as hungry in a month because I’ll have everything, especially being a three-time champion. When I was the one-time [champion], I wasn’t really that hungry no more. And then as a two-time [champion], I wasn’t hungry until I lost it. And it’s like, I want that back, you know? I feel like once I get that, then it might be time for me. All right, I can, I can do it [retire].
“And it might be around the right age for me to [stop]. I know it’s boxing politics. You never know. It might be one fight. You can get the belt or two fights or three fights. You never know. So we’ll just. We’ll have to just play it by ear and see.”
