Redis Prograis suffered a dislocated ankle when he slipped on the canvas in the 11th round of his loss to Jack Catterall on Saturday night at the Co-op Live Arena in Manchester, England.
(Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)
Promoter Eddie Hearn revealed the injury, and Prograis (29-3, 24 KOs) confirmed he was injured when he fell in the 11th round after throwing a wild right hand and missing what was intended to be a Hail Mary -to be fighting punch.
What kept Prograis from winning
– No ability to print
– Combination punch
– Body attack
– Not equipped to cut off the ring
– Strong chin
Fighting on just one leg in the 11th round, Prograis did a great job in a 12-round unanimous decision loss to Catterall, 31, in his home country. The judges scored it 117-108, 116-109 and 116-109.
Prograis was down twice in round nine after being clipped with left hands. Catterall was on the canvas in round five of a jab that caused him to stumble.
Prograis would have won the battle if he had the right tools but lacked the technical skills. It was a game he should have been able to win.
For a fighter who has been in the game for 12 years and won two world titles, it’s shocking that Prograis never learned to apply pressure, attack the body or cut off the ring.
A warrior like William Zepeda of the lightweight division tonight would have been a nightmare for Catterall because of all of the aforementioned areas that Prograis lacked in his game, in which he is strong.
Catterall would have been forced to fight, pushed incessantly and attacked to the body. If you were to engineer a fighter in a lab to defeat Catterall, Zepeda would be the creation and promoter Eddie Hearn would be miserable afterward.
“Maybe 12 rounds is too much for me now,” Regus Prograis told DAZN Boxing when interviewed after his loss to Catterall on Saturday night. “I started to fade in the later rounds. I hurt my knee. I hurt my ankle. It’s because it’s getting too long, I think. For now I’m going to do something different and let the young guys take over.”
“The first three rounds or four rounds,” Eddie Hearn told the Stampede grounds about how Catterall got off to a slow start. “You don’t pit two southpaws against each other. You’re pitting two top-five fighters against each other, and sometimes, when there’s so much on the line, the first three rounds are going to be a bit of a grind.
“It was the fifth round, the knockdown and it changed the fight. All of a sudden I thought Jack was probably behind after the fifth or sixth lap. So, I had to go from there and be more aggressive. When he was more aggressive, he hurt Regis,” Hearn said.
The punch that initially hurt Prograis in round nine came when he was being attacked, and he landed it in self-defense. It was not a case of Catterall being aggressive. He was never aggressive in battle in the traditional sense. Even after Catterall dropped Prograis twice in round nine, he threw almost no punches in rounds 10, 11 and 12. Catterall played it safe, afraid to let his hands go for fear of being clipped.
“By the way, Regis Prograis is a proper fighter. It was a great speech. He completely turned his ankle in the 11th round. He is through the 12th round. Yes, because he sprained his ankle. It depended. He couldn’t even stand on it, but he never stopped trying to win the fight. Big respect to him,” Hearn said.
Let’s get this straight: The injured ankle was not the reason why Prograis lost to Catterall tonight. He lost because he didn’t know how to press, cut off the ring, throw body shots or handle the single pot shots that Catterall hit him with. Prograis was doomed to lose without a good chin as he could not have won with his poor punch resistance.
