By Adam Baskin: Devin Haney could be making a big mistake choosing to face WBC light welterweight champion Regis Prograis in his first fight at 140 on December 9th at the Chase Center in San Francisco, California.
At this point, the Prograis-Haney fight still isn’t official. Mike Coppinger reported it being a done deal, but Prograis revealed that they’re still waiting for Haney to sign the contract.
Assuming Haney eventually signs, Prograis will defend his WBC 140-lb title on DAZN PPV in San Francisco in a fight that will have massive ramifications for the light welterweight division.
A knockout loss for Haney will put him in a position where he’ll need to decide whether to return to the 135-lb division because if he can’t beat the 35-year-old Regis, it suggests that his future outlook is dim for the 140-lb division.
There are already many doubters who feel that Haney lacks the pop in his punches to have a future at light welterweight because the gimmickry that he used to defeat much smaller & older 35-year-old Vasily Lomachenko, clinching & mauling, might not be effective against the killers at 140.
Haney might not be able to maul his way to controversial victories over these fighters from the light welterweight division:
- Subriel Matias
- Teofimo Lopez
- Arnold Barboza Jr.
- Gary Antuanne Russell
- Ryan Garcia
- Jose Ramirez
- Sandor Martin
- Richardson Hitchins
- Kenneth Simms
If Prograis can regain the form that he’d shown in his previous four fights before his match against Danielito Zorrilla, he could be a nightmare for Haney, making him regret choosing him. Unfortunately for Haney, he doesn’t have good options to win a world title at 140.
Devins will not fight IBF 140-lb champion Subriel Matias because he hits too hard, and the chances of getting blasted out would be too high.
With Haney’s lack of punching power, he has nothing to hold Prograis back to make him afraid of walking forward.
In Prograis’ fight against Zorrilla, he couldn’t walk him down because he was too powerful. Early on in that fight, Prograis was dropped by Zorrilla and staggered. Haney doesn’t have anywhere near the power of Zorrilla or Prograis’ other past opponents, Jose Zepeda, Josh Taylor, Juan Jose Velasco, Terry Flanagan, or Kiryl Relikh.
It’s believed that what led Haney (30-0, 15 KOs) & his dad, Bill, to choose Prograis (29-1, 24 KOs) as the champion to target for a title shot was his off performance against Zorrilla last June in New Orleans.
Zorrilla’s odd fighting style, which involved a lot of movement, holding & sneaky shots, had Prograis mentally tied in knots. What made Zorrilla especially difficult was that he had massive power, and he was catching Prograis walking in.
Regis couldn’t just walk in like he normally does because Zorrilla was nailing him with power shots that were hurting him early on.
While Arnold Barboza Jr. easily figured out Zorilla’s style and beat him up with combination punching last year, Prograis failed to problem-solve. He was lucky to get a twelve-round split decision win over the Puerto Rican fighter.
