By: Sean Crose
“I’m very excited for my first fight as part of the PBC stable,” Regis Prograis said during a virtual press conference on Tuesday to promote the undercard of the Gevonta Davis-Leo Santa Cruz fight on the 31st of this month. “I’ve been wanting to come over to this side for a long time and it’s finally happening. When something bad happens, something good usually happens off of that so this is perfect.” Prograis, who suffered his first loss his last time in the ring when he faced Josh Taylor in Taylor’s native England, is happy to be fighting in his home state of Texas time around.
“I’m in Katy, Texas, which is a two-hour drive from San Antonio, is a big fight town,” he said. “Plus, this is the first fight back where we’re having fans. Everything is working out perfectly and I’m so excited to be on such a big card and to get back in the ring.” Prograis isn’t returning to face a soft touch when he slips through the ropes of Dallas’ AT&T Stadium Halloween night. His opponent will be the 16-0-1 Juan Heraldez of Nevada. “My next move depends on what’s offered to me,” he said. “But first off, I have a tough fight in front of me. I’m focused on Juan Heraldez.”
Not that Prograis isn’t thinking ahead. “I do yearn to be a champion at 140 pounds again before I move up to welterweight,” he claimed on Tuesday. “That is the plan. But the landscape of boxing changes so much that it’s so hard to predict. You never know what’s going to happen.” Still, Prograis made it clear he plants on facing Taylor, who he feels he beat, a second time. “There are a lot of people out there right now for me to fight,” he said. “Adrien Broner, Josh Taylor, Jose Ramirez. Me and Josh Taylor are definitely going to fight each other again.”
Although he feels he bested Taylor in England, Prograis believes he learned from the experience of fighting the man, regardless. “The Taylor fight definitely showed me that there are things I need to improve on,” he said. “Going into that fight, I questioned myself if I could fight 12 hard rounds. I had only gone 12 rounds against Terry Flanagan but that was a boxing lesson, not 12 hard rounds. I fought 12 hard, hard rounds against Taylor so it was kind of a question in my head before that. Now I know that I can do it.”