By Steve Kim
It's been several years before junior welterweight contender, Regis Prograis, has fought in his home state of Louisiana but on Saturday night he makes his homecoming to New Orleans as he headlines versus Juan Jose Velasco from the Lakefront Arena on ESPN.
His last bout back on March 9th - a two round destruction of Julius Indongo - took place in Deadwood, South Dakota.
With a victory, Prograis is set to join the World Boxing Super Series 140-pound tournament.
"Definitely going to be way different. Everybody I talked to that was there it was their first time being there. Like,'you've been here? You've been here?' Nobody went to Deadwood, South Dakota, it was actually a cool little place," recalled Prograis.
"I think the population was like 1,500, something like that. It was real cool, I actually want to go back one day," said Prograis, who know gets to perform in front of friends and family this weekend."New Orleans of course is way, way different. We're going to have fun."
Yeah, Prograis - who is now located in Houston, Texas - is excited by this opportunity to perform in 'the Big Easy'.
"Super excited, man, I was definitely excited," he stated with enthusiasm. "I haven't fought there, everybody would ask me when I'm going to fight in New Orleans, 'when are you coming to fight?' Because I go back a lot, all my family and friends still live there. So everybody would ask me when I would come back and fight - this is the chance.
"This is like that time I'm going to come back and fight so I'm super excited."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com
