A step up in competition didn’t seem to affect Regis Prograis as he easily beat former world champion Terry Flanagan in New Orleans.
Prograis scored a wide unanimous decision win over Flanagan (119-108, 118-109, 117-110) to advance to the World Boxing Super Series junior welterweight semifinals. Prograis also retained his interim WBC title for the second time since winning it back in March.
Flanagan fared well at the start of the fight, landing the right jab decently well. Prograis quickly adapted and used his upper body to dodge a lot of Flanagan’s punches while landing several counter punches.
As the fight got deeper, Prograis became the one throwing the jab more often and kept landing it on Flanagan’s face. Flanagan was in deep trouble in the eighth round when Prograis landed a straight left hand to the side of Flanagan’s head to knock him down. Once Flanagan got back up, Prograis unleashed a flurry to try and look for the stoppage. Flanagan was able to weather the storm of punches Prograis threw for the remainder of the round, he was unable to seriously come back from the fight.
For Prograis, he will get a chance to be a full world champion when he faces WBA champion Kiryl Relikh in the semifinals. Relikh advanced to the semifinals in early October when he defeated Eduard Troyanovsky to retain his title in Japan. For Flanagan, his career is does not have any clear direction for success as he has lost his last two fights, both of which took place at 140 pounds, after being the WBO lightweight title.
