Regis Prograis vs Devin Haney Preview and Undercard

On Saturday Regis “Rougarou” Prograis (29-1-0, 24KOs) puts his super lightweight WBC world title on the line against former undisputed lightweight champion, Devin “the Dream” Haney (30-0, 15KOs). Both men have something to prove to the world, and a perfect opportunity to do so.

The vast majority of Regis Prograis’ career has been at super lightweight. He plans on being at the very top of that division for a while yet. In 2018-2019 Prograis was involved in the World Boxing Super Series tournament at 140lbs, where he went through some of the best the division had to offer at the time. He brought his WBC diamond belt, and first burned through Terry Flanagan, then Kiryl Relik, when he was crowned WBA world champion, on his way to the final fight in the series against future undisputed super lightweight, Josh Taylor. His back-and-forth with Taylor is probably his most well known match to date. It was close by all accounts, but one which brought the best out of both men. Some saw Prograis as the victor, officially however, Taylor got his hand raised and thus became the man at 140 as well as the WBSS champion. Prograis took the loss in stride and has continued his campaign, even defeating a dangerous and game Jose Zepeda to become a two-time super lightweight world champion, this one being his currently held WBC world title.

He successfully defended that title in June of this year against Danielito Zorilla. A flat performance garnered some criticism for Rougarou, but his own recognition of his lackluster showing, as well as a career full of exciting fights, most of which ended in a knockout, indicate that it was more of an outlier performance, and far from the norm.
Devin Haney is moving up after a successful campaign in the lightweight division. About as successful as one can be as a matter of fact. He was initially elevated to WBC world champion after Lomachenko accepted the title of “WBC Franchise Champion”. This caused great confusion in the division when Teofimo Lopez beat Lomachenko and thus won a heretofore unwinnable franchise title. Confusion over the WBC belts waned after George Kambosas beat the unified champion, Teofimo Lopez, and almost immediately signed on to fight Haney to find out who the actual indisputable, undisputed lightweight champion was. Haney went all the way to Australia, twice thanks to a rematch clause, to show the world who the man was at lightweight. Coming out with every belt, put Haney squarely at the top of the division.

He wanted to further prove himself worthy of his undisputed status by fighting Vasyl Lomachenko. The fight was competitive throughout, with Haney showing that he, at the very least, belonged in the ring with the former p4p number 1, Lomachenko. Though the result was controversial, Haney successfully retained his belts, and gained more respect than he had to that point. He has since relinquished all four titles in an effort to gain more accolades at 140 lbs, which sets us up nicely for where we are this coming Saturday.

With their respective styles in mind, there are myriad ways this fight could go, with an assumption that both men will need more than one gameplan, which is what makes it so intriguing. Haney has one of the best jabs in the sport, and seems to do best fighting from the outside. Prograis is more of a seek-and-destroy type style, typically doing best in middle to inside range using more power punches to get the job done. That is not intended to pigeon-hole either fighter. Both have shown how well-rounded they can be, and are capable of success at any range. Prograis has an 82.76% knockout ratio, and even without numbers, one’s eyes can tell them that the man has more than enough power to stop a fight short of the final bell. Haney is not known as a knockout artist, with a knockout ratio of 50%, but he’s shown that at least up to lightweight, he carries a respectable punch and is not afraid to at least try for an early stoppage. Since this is his first fight at 140 lbs, how his power carries up is one of the big questions for Haney.