Lafayette, La. — In October, Regis Prograis defeated Terry Flanagan by unanimous decision to advance to the World Boxing Super Series Semifinals in the Super Lightweight Division. It’s been 6 months since that last fight, and Prograis is itching to get back in the ring.
“Definitely. Yes, of course,” said WBC Interim Super Lightweight Champion Regis Prograis. “I’ve been waiting to fight for so long. It’s not only the time, because I’ve waited before 6 months, 9 months and stuff but I’m fighting for the official World Boxing Association– the WBA Championship of the world.”
Saturday’s fight at the Cajundome in Lafayette will be a showdown with WBA Champion Kiryl Relikh, who will present some different challenges than Prograis’ last opponent.
“I”m not going to give any part of the game plan away but [Relikh] is tough as nails,” said Prograis’ trainer Bobby Benton. “He’s going to come right to us so we’ve just got to be smart.”
Prograis said this training camp was a little different– focusing more on recovery– which meant lots of ice baths and getting more sleep. But it was still as tough as ever, with a continued emphasis on his defense.
“Before my last fight most people were saying I cannot go 12 rounds and I take too many punches, I don’t have defense,” Prograis said. “Last fight, I barely got touched and I went 12 rounds. So now, I’m still working on a lot of defense and I’m settling down more. We just keep working on different things. My thing is I always just want to keep getting better.”
“This fight’s just going to be a little bit different,” Benton said. “Last fight we worked on him not getting hit. I think he maybe got hit 5 or 6 times the whole fight which was the game plan was perfect. This one, I’m hoping he doesn’t get hit much either but it’s a different type of guy.”
Prograis, who doesn’t study his opponents or watch film at all, says you’ll have to wait and see on Saturday how he plans on approaching this fight.
“I never really know what I’m going to do until I get in the ring that night,” Prograis said. “It’s really like the fight week. I see him and I size him up. Like I just saw him. He was in here and I really didn’t size him up like that but I looked at him and stuff and it depends on fight night what I feel like doing. I might feel like going to war and putting him out. Or I might feel like let’s box again or be a little more aggressive so I don’t know. But I’m definitely going to try and go for the knock-out because he’s never been stopped before.”
Relikh is 23 and 2, with both losses coming as unanimous decisions, while Prograis remains undefeated at 23 and oh. They both have 19 knock-out wins on their resumes.