By Chris Williams: Undefeated Regis Prograis (21-0, 18 KOs) destroyed former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Julius Indongo (22-2, 11 KOs) by a 2nd round knockout to capture the interim WBC light welterweight title on Friday night at the Deadwood Mountain Grand in Deadwood, South Dakota.
Prograis, 29, knocked the 35-year-old Indongo down four times in the fight in dropping him once in round 1 and three more times in round 2 before it was halted. The official time of the stoppage by referee Ian John Lewis was at 2:54 of round 2.
In the first round, Indongo was fighting well until he hit with a hard jab and knocked down by Prograis. The shot hurt Indongo.
Prograis went after Indongo in round 2, knocking him down with big shots on three separate occasions. The southpaw Indongo was making it easy for the shorter 5’8” Prograis by standing too close to him. This allowed Prograis to nail Indongo with shots that he didn’t have the chin to take.
Prograis connected on 46 of 94 shots for an unbelievably high connect percentage of 49. Indongo connected on 32 of 120 shots for a 27 percent connect percentage.
The win for Prograis over Indongo puts him in position to face the winner of the March 17th Amir Imam vs. Jose Carlos Ramirez fight. Those two are battling for the vacant WBC light welterweight title recently vacated by Terence Crawford. Prograis will give the Imam vs. Ramirez all kinds of problems. Ramirez will probably beat Imam, and that’ll setup a fight between him and Prograis at some point.
Indongo had a lot of fans believing in him after his wins over Eduard Troyanovsky and Ricky Burns. But in Indongo’s last two fights, his career has fallen apart suddenly with him losing to Terence Crawford and Prograis by early knockouts. What we can now see is Indongo was never talented enough to compete with the likes of Prograis and Crawford. Indongo hasn’t gotten old like some boxing fans think. It’s just that he was never that good to begin with.
With the way Indongo lost tonight to Prograis, suddenly Terence Crawford isn’t looking so special after all. Crawford stopped Indongo in 3 rounds last August. A lot of boxing fans got excited about that win and were ready to crown Crawford fighter in the sport. After tonight though, Prograis showed that what Crawford did in beating Indongo was nothing special. He had the perfect guy in front of him to knockout last August, and Prograis showed that tonight. Crawford is a good fighter, but I think a lot of boxing fans overestimated his talent based on his wins over flawed fighters like Indongo, Ricky Burns, Felix Diaz, Dierry Jean, Viktor Postol and John Molina Jr.
