Favorite Jack Catterall and Regis Progais squared off today for their 12-round light welterweight clash this Saturday, October 26 at the Co-op Live Arena in Manchester, England. The event will be shown live on DAZN.
Surprisingly, two-time 140-lb champion Prograis (29-2, 24 KOs) is the underdog, and his career is literally on the line against light-hitting defensive artist Catterall (29-1, 13 KOs).
In just one fight, Prograis, 35, went from being considered the #1 fighter in the light welterweight division to a washed-up former champion, fighting for career survival against a guy who is more household level than a top ten man .
Regis must use his power to win
Prograis is going to have to use his power to win this fight as Catterall has a negative style that involves a lot of jabbing, moving and pinning. It’s ugly to watch, and it must make it difficult for the judges because his shots have so little power. Regis will absolutely have to knock out Catterall to win because he’s the visitor, and he probably won’t be given any favors by the judges.
In Catterall’s last fight against Josh Taylor on May 25 in Leeds, he hit hard, clinched, ran. The shots he landed were weaker, and he held many that should have resulted in warnings and points deductions.
Catterall looked like a British version by Shakur Stevensonwhich makes scoring the competition difficult for the judges. After the fight, Taylor’s promoter, Bob Arum, lashed out at the scores, feeling that the judges gave his fighter a raw deal. If Catterall were an American, he would be booed out of events, making his promoter look bad in front of the networks.
It’s not good for promotional companies to have runners who boo fans. The network deals are like gold to promotional companies, and they can’t afford to have a boring fighter put in the top spots and booed.
“Only I am me and the person who got there and enjoyed myself,” Regis Prograis told the Fight Hub TV channel on his approach to his clash against Jack Catterall on Saturday night. “I put too much pressure on myself, and I feel like I need to have goals.”
Prograis looked bad in his one-sided 12-round unanimous decision loss to Devin Haney last December 9th. Afterward, Prograis needs to focus on landing headers as Haney has been running and finishing against him all night.
Prograis should have practiced getting short punches to catch Haney when he came in to hold, and he should have made him pay every time he tried to grab. We saw Ryan Garcia and Jorge Linares both hurt Haney when he tried to excessively hold them, and he came close to getting knocked out in both of those fights.
For Saturday’s fight, Prograis should have practiced handling Catterall’s possession, as it is one of his main tools to neutralize the attack of his opponents. If Prograis can nail Catterall in the at-bats, he has an excellent chance of knocking him out because he’s going to stick non-stop. He can’t help himself.
“I feel like in the last year, I’ve lost myself, but at the moment I’m back to being me. I overtrained and did so many other things,” Prograis said of his loss to Devin Haney last December. “At the moment we are enemies. If I beat Jack Catterall, maybe we can fight again. He still has a belt and I was able to fight him again.
“I wanted to be a two-time champion again, and I passed up a lot of opportunities at 147 for big money. People were like, ‘You’re crazy.’ Now, I have a goal. I want to be a three-time champion. This is my goal. Now I just go out and enjoy myself. I love boxing very much.
“I’d rather fight a southpaw than an orthodox. I feel like it’s easier to fight a southpaw,” Prograis said.
The cat
Rougarou@jack_catt93 and @RPrograms come face to face at the Etihad Stadium in the Manchester City Fan Zone
#CatterallPrograis | @DAZNBoxing | #UCL pic.twitter.com/TrNQ6UmnTj
— Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) October 23, 2024
