Devin Haney gives brilliant performance in shutout of Regis Prograis
New division, same success.
Devin Haney gave a masterclass performance Saturday night at Chase Center in San Francisco, dropping Regis Prograis and defeating him by a shutout decision to take Prograis’ 140-pound title.
All three judges had the same score, 120-107, 12 rounds to none. Boxing Junkie had the same score.
Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) didn’t get the knockout he predicted. Otherwise, he couldn’t have been more dominating.
“I did everything I said I was going to do,” Prograis said. “I went in there and I handicapped him. We knew he was going to come in with a great left hand. My dad came up with a tremendous game plan, as well as my team.
“I did what I said I was going to do.”
Haney controlled the fight by controlling the distance. He used jab and footwork to keep Prograis at a distance advantageous to him, from where he picked Prograis apart.
The San Francisco native’s best punch was his right, one of which put Prograis down in Round 3 and more than hurt him along the way.
Prograis (29-2, 24 KOs) never gave up but couldn’t get close enough to his taller opponent with any consistency, which made it impossible for him to land enough punches to win rounds.
The now-former two-division titleholder landed only 36 punches overall, the lowest total in a 12-round fight in the history of CompuBox.
Prograis stated the obvious after the fight.
“That motherf—– is good, better than I thought. I’m not going to lie,” Prograis said.
Haney performed much better in this fight than his last bout at 135, a close decision over Vasiliy Lomachenko on May 20.
He said the fact he didn’t have to struggle to make weight helped him a great deal on Saturday.
“Man, it made a tremendous difference,” he said. “You saw the difference in my performances in the Lomachenko fight and this fight. Tremendous difference. I felt so strong. In this camp I was able to recover, relax more, take some days off.
“I feel great. 140 got a new king.”
Haney, who now holds the WBC title, said going into the fight that he wants to take part only in major events. He has many options in one of the sport’s deepest divisions.
There are his fellow titleholders, Subriel Matias (IBF), Rolando Romero (WBA) and Teofimo Lopez (WBO). His promoter, Eddie Hearn, said popular contender Ryan Garcia is a possible opponent. And Gervonta Davis always lurks.
“We’ve got a guy on the same platform on DAZN. His name is Ryan Garcia,” Hearn said. “For me that’s a huge fight, Ryan Garcia against Devin Haney. Gervonta Davis against Devin Haney. Huge fight. Teofimo Lopez against Devin Haney.
“This is a guy I think will probably beat them all, and he’s going to be around for a long time.”
No one who saw Haney fight on Saturday will be surprised by anything he does.