By Jim Calfa: WBC light welterweight champion Regis Prograis (29-1, 24 KOs) admitted that he overlooked his opponent Danielito Zorrilla (17-2, 13 KOs) on Saturday night in having to struggle to beat him by what many fans felt was a controversial twelve round split decision at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.
During the post-fight interview, Prograis, 34, admitted that he wasn’t happy with his performance and should have cut off the ring better and thrown more punches.
Prograis says he had his mind on all the opportunities he had for big-money fights, and he kind of overlooked his 29-year-old Puerto Rican opponent Zorrilla, who was brought in as a substitute for Liam Paro.
Regis knocked Zorrilla down in round three with a left to the head but was unable to finish him off. In the first round, Zorrilla surprisingly appeared to drop Prograis with a straight right, but the referee missed making the call.
The scores: 118-109, 117-110 for Prograis, and 114-113 for Zorrilla.
“I definitely felt like I won it. I didn’t see how they scored it for him, but I mean, whatever. I don’t think it was close, but I know my performance definitely wasn’t good,” said Prograis to the media at the post-fight press conference after his twelve-round split decision win over Danielito Zorrilla tonight.
“The opponent came and just ran around. That was it,” said Prograis about Zorrilla. “When it happened, I thought, ‘That ain’t knockdown,’ but he did hit me with a shot. So it looked like it,” Regis said about being dropped by Zorrilla in the first round. In the ring, it didn’t feel like a knockdown at all.
“I was never hurt in the fight at all. I had some stuff on my face, but he never hit me with a shot where ‘This dude really hit hard.’
“Sometimes you overlook things. I have so many opportunities for such crazy money. Sometimes you look past these opponents. Maybe I did do. I was looking past. I guess I was looking past Zorrilla.
“Just cut him off more, and I feel like now I can say I should have been a lot of times. I was doing it. I was going to throw out the jab, but I should have been stepping with my jab instead of just trying to throw the setup jab.
“After I dropped him [in round three], I definitely should have cut him off more and thrown more shots to the body. Yeah, I was getting a little frustrated, for sure. I definitely was getting frustrated,” said Prograis when asked if he was frustrated with the clinching that Zorrilla was doing.
“I didn’t really see how he fell, to be honest. He got up, and I didn’t think he was in super trouble,” said Prograis.