By Charles Brun: WBC light welterweight champion Regis Prograis insists that he’s not looking past his replacement opponent Danielito Zorrilla in his debut with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing this Saturday night on June 17th on DAZN at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Prograis is arguably the best fighter at 140 and has been for the last five years. His only loss was a controversial twelve round majority decision against Josh Taylor in London, England, in 2019. Had that fight been staged in neutral territory, Prograis likely would have won, as he beat Taylor up for worse than Teofimo Lopez.
As the best at 140, Regis has been avoided by the top fighters for years, and that’s not going to change, even with him signing with Eddie Hearn.
Prograis avoided like the plague
The British promoter can’t force reluctant fighters like Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero, Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, Teofimo Lopez, or Gervonta Davis to fight Prograis.
Prograis won’t last long with Hearn because he will discover what Regis’ last promoter found out for himself. The top fighters refuse to fight Prograis because they don’t want to lose. Prograis would beat everyone at 140, including the braggart Teofimo.
This will be a homecoming for the 34-year-old Prograis, who recently won the vacant WBO light welterweight title last November with an eleventh round knockout victory over Jose Zepeda.
Devin Haney had briefly shown interest in fighting Prograis, but he’s gone quiet lately, suggesting that he’s not going in this direction. His dad, Bill Haney, met with Rank Promoter Bob Arum this week to look at several options he had, and Prograis is obviously NOT one of them.
You can see Prograis’s desperation already creeping in last Friday when he showed irritation at Adrien Broner for failing to mention him by name after his comeback win against Bill Hutchinson.
Broner is nowhere near the fighter he once was, and he won’t give Prograis the money he could get fighting one of the relevant fighters like Haney, Teofimo Lopez, and Gervonta Davis.
Regis needs the top names
Prograis (28-1, 24 KOs) has to look good to continue building his popularity. Still, he can’t afford to be out of this world impressive because he’ll scare away suitors like Devin Haney, Teofimo Lopez, Ryan Garcia, Subriel Matias, and Josh Taylor. That’s the dilemma Prograis is dealing with. Teo isn’t worth mentioning because he says he’s retired now.
Regis’ best chance of getting a notable opponent would be against IBF champion Subriel Matias if his promoter Eddie Hearn can entice the hard-hitting Puerto Rican fighter to face him.
If not, it could be another no-name opponent, which won’t be suitable for Prograis because he could soon be looking for another promoter if his three fights with Hearn fail to create interest. That’s kind of hard to do when you’re getting matched against obscure opposition with little talent.
Another problem that Prograis has is that if his three fights under his Matchroom contract fail to attract interest from fans, Hearn likely won’t re-sign him. It doesn’t matter if Prograis wins all three contests. His contract won’t be extended by Matchroom through no fault of his own.
We saw that happen with Demetrius Andrade, who all his fights with Hearn but was still dumped when his contract ended because the U.S. fans weren’t excited at seeing him beating the weak opposition that was fed to him.
Unfortunately for Prograis, his fight with Zorrilla likely won’t create much buzz this Saturday night on DAZN and probably won’t bring in more than the tiniest trickle of new subscribers. The fans that have heard of Zorrilla know him from his loss to Arnold Barboza Jr. That’s it.
“I’m not looking past him, but you have in your mind that there are massive fights out there, but I know I won’t get to them unless I take care of my business on Saturday,” said Prograis. “Until then, I don’t think about anyone else because you might not get there.
“I didn’t watch too much on [Zorrilla], to be honest. I saw a little bit of him, but I feel like I’m the best at 140. I’m at the top, and I feel like you got to study me. They have to worry about me. I don’t have
to worry about them,” said Prograis to iFL TV.
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