“Nothing will kill boxing, and nothing can save it,” Larry Merchant, the great old American sportswriter and commentator, once said as he surveyed the enduring chaos of a bloody business which now operates even deeper in the shadows away from mainstream life and sport. His words have resounded again after a terrible second half of the year for boxing. A riveting fight between two contemporary artists of the ring in Terence Crawford and Errol Spence cannot be made and, instead, we face the depressing reality of Tyson Fury facing a damaged Derek Chisora for a third time next Saturday in a contest devoid of any meaning beyond the money it will make for those involved. Such a mess makes boxing seem more broken than ever.
Merchant is 91 and so he has not been seen during a surreal Thanksgiving week in the Californian sunshine as Regis Prograis and Jose Zepeda prepare for their world title bout this Saturday night in Los Angeles. This is a serious and compelling super-lightweight fight which, while it will definitely not save anyone, resonates with everything that still makes the best characters in boxing so vivid and fascinating when they occupy a space of real gravitas.
Boxing might avoid troubling questions about doping, or crawl after Jake Paul and KSI in the hope that a few more bucks can be made from the YouTubers, but Prograis and Zepeda offer a different way. Their fight, of course, has been ignored amid the World Cup, Thanksgiving and boxing’s ongoing corruption. But Prograis and Zepeda have concentrated on a searing battle which seems almost profound to the few of us who still care about boxing.
“I’m a historian,” Prograis says simply in his swanky hotel suite in Los Angeles as all thoughts of boxing’s decline and the perilous challenge of his WBC title fight against Zepeda are pushed aside for a deeper reflection on life outside the ring. As always with Prograis, conversation stretches across a variety of subjects, from his love of books to grappling with alligators and learning fluent Portuguese. The clock, meanwhile, ticks slowly towards the moment he will make his solitary walk to the ring and try to become a world champion again.
“I’ve read so many books about great fighters, legendary fighters, and their personal life was terrible,” Prograis continues in his languid New Orleans drawl. “But I don’t care how great I could be if it means my personal life is bad. I’d rather be happy than a legend of boxing who is miserable.”
I think Prograis is the best fighter in the world in his division but, since losing a desperately close decision against Josh Taylor in London just over three years ago, he has become a victim of boxing’s shoddy politics. He has been avoided by other elite boxers and forced to wait for this belated opportunity to win the vacant WBC title. Zepeda, an outstanding fighter from LA who carries menacing power and is arguably in the top three super-lightweights in the world, now stands in his way. This is an extremely rare title showdown which both men have described as “a 50-50 fight.”
Prograis knows that if he prevails against Zepeda he will be in a much more powerful position to set up an eventual rematch with Taylor alongside other lucrative and significant bouts against a host of star names, including Teófimo López and Gervonta Davis, eyeing a move up to the 140-pound division. Boxing shenanigans may intervene but victory for Prograis in Los Angeles will give new hope that he might feature in such genuine fights which suit his charisma and talent.
“To me he’s the most marketable guy in boxing,” Prograis’ trainer, Bobby Benton, says. Benton is a calm and thoughtful man whose father, Bill, was also an esteemed trainer from Houston. “Regis is intelligent and well-spoken. He does great interviews and he’s a really special fighter. In a perfect world, he beats Zepeda, defends his WBC belt against another really good former world champion in José Ramírez, and then fights the winner of Teófimo López against Sandor Martin. That’s a dream scenario for Regis becoming the superstar he deserves to be.
“I would then love him to fight the winner of Tank [Gervonta Davis] or Ryan Garcia – even if I know Tank won’t dare fight Regis. He’s too small. But there are a bunch of great fights out there for Regis – like Devin Haney. Even [Vasiliy] Lomachenko is possible if [the feted Ukrainian] beats Haney. If Regis has the belts, they have to come through him.”
Such hopeful match-making depends on Prograis beating Zepeda. The 33-year-old is full of conviction. “I definitely feel I’m at another level to Zepeda,” Prograis says. “I’m just a much better all-round fighter and I’m pretty sure he’s going to be feeling more pressure than me. He has said this is do-or-die for him [Zepeda’s record is 36-2 compared to Prograis’ 27-1] because this is his third title shot and he’s fighting in his home town.”
Does he think Zepeda believes he can win on Saturday night? “He’s a decent guy but I really don’t see him having that belief,” Prograis says as he brushes aside his earlier suggestion in public that there is little to separate him and Zepeda. He talks very differently now. “Deep down, his confidence is low. At the press conference [on Tuesday] he said: ‘Whoever wins this fight will be a real champion.’ I would never say that word ‘whoever’. I know I’m going to win.”
Benton, who needs to think more cautiously, offers a counter argument: “I disagree. Zepeda’s just a soft-spoken guy. That’s how he carries himself. There is no doubt in my mind Zepeda believes he’s going to win. It’s all-or-nothing and his mentality has to be the same as Regis. They both have to win because it’s so hard for fighters to bounce back from losses. We thought Regis beat Taylor but, in reality, they gave a split-decision the other way. Taylor is a great fighter but look how we have had to battle the last three years.
“So Zepeda brings danger. He can really punch and he’s an accurate sharpshooter. We’ve got to be smart defensively because Zepeda is at elite level. His problem is that Regis is a step above everybody. I’m biased but look at Regis’s last three fights. I don’t think he got hit with a clean shot but he destroyed those guys. Zepeda is at a different level to them but Regis will be just too good for him.”
Some age-old boxing rituals remain and Thanksgiving adds another layer of agony to the brutal process of cutting weight. But Prograis rises above a boxer’s typical concerns of starvation and apprehension in fight-week to make a surprising revelation as to the famous old fighter with whom he feels he has most in common.
“George Foreman had the same attitude as me,” he says of the once imposing world heavyweight champion who, after he was shocked by Muhammad Ali nearly 50 years ago, became a lovable and serene figure who made an unlikely comeback to regain his title in middle age while operating a booming business outside the ring.
“I don’t know George but it seems he was always happy with who he was outside boxing,” Prograis suggests. “He had a bunch of kids, made a lot of money and seemed so fulfilled. He is now an older man [of 73] but he’s still happy and kept all his money. George is a legend but we think of him enjoying his life most of all. The only other fighter I can think of who came close in getting the right balance is Sugar Ray Leonard. But Ray was also haunted by the past. So I look more to George Foreman as the way to live my life as a boxer.”
Prograis is a traditionalist who still cuts his own unique path. His reverence for boxing history is unusual for a fighter in 2022 but then he is a distinctive man. It is a welcome break from fretting about the malaise of boxing to sit with Prograis as he reaches for his phone to show me an assortment of videos in which he manages to clamp shut the jaws of a large alligator before picking it up for a scaly cuddle.
In one of the videos there is disturbing footage of the alligator actually biting the boxer’s foot in swampy land alongside his home outside Houston. “That was just three weeks ago,” Prograis says wryly. “But I had my big old boots on so I was fine. He’s a pretty big gator – around 10 feet long. We needed three of us to pick him up so I could play with him.”
Playing with an alligator is one way of preparing for a world title fight but Prograis shrugs in amusement. “I reckon it’s because I’m from the south. If I came from up north I’d be playing with a bear. It’s just me being adventurous and having fun. There’s always a lot going on that I love to do. I have my wife [Raquel who is from Brazil] and our three kids and we travel a lot. Soon after I beat Zepeda I’ll take my family to Rio where I can speak Portuguese and enjoy life.”
It would seem as if boxing’s anti-doping authorities have already settled into holiday fever. Prograis offers the surprising revelation that neither he nor Zepeda have been visited by the drug-testers. “It’s just days before the fight and we haven’t been tested. Why are we not being tested? What is the WBC doing? I told them: ‘Test.’ Still nothing. This boxing business is so dirty and corrupt that, if I didn’t love the sport as much as I do, I would walk away.”
Last month’s fiasco in British boxing, when Conor Benn failed a doping test but his promoters still attempted to proceed with a money-spinning bout against Chris Eubank Jr, highlighted the issue again. “It’s crazy that so many fighters are willing to do this,” Prograis says. “For me, it’s unfathomable to cheat in boxing because you could kill somebody. Bobby’s been around the sport for over 20 years and he said: ‘Listen, most fighters cheat.’”
Benton adds: “We argue about it all the time. Regis used to like to believe boxing was clean. But I think over 60 to 70% of the guys at the top level cheat in some way. Regis used to be like: ‘No way.’ But every time someone gets caught he’ll say: ‘Oh, damn. You’re right.’”
Prograis nods at the bleak reminder. “Boxing is often disappointing but that don’t matter to me when I’m so happy in my personal life.”
Rather than attempting the impossible task of trying to save boxing it seems as if Prograis savours all that matters to him in real life. “Exactly,” he says with a grin.
“He doesn’t show it but, deep down inside, he’s got some anger to him,” Benton suggests of Prograis. “He’s had that ever since I’ve known him as a 16-year-old kid. So come fight night he doesn’t just want to win. He wants to make a statement. He should have won back a world title soon after Taylor but he is that guy nobody wants to fight. He has shown great patience with the politics of boxing but he is eager to fight Zepeda.”
Such intent is evident in Prograis as he shuts away his phone and leaves those images of alligators in Houston – the city which his family moved to from New Orleans in 2005 after they lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. It was there, aged 16, that he discovered boxing.
Seventeen years later, he is on the brink of becoming a two-time world champion. “I will really feel it once we reach the arena on Saturday night,” Prograis says. “That’s when things start kicking in for me. In the dressing room it will feel real as I have my hands wrapped, start hitting the pads and get ready to walk to the ring.”
Prograis smiles as a strange expression crosses his face. Far beyond concerns about the latest existential crisis in boxing, that captivating look fuses contentment with relish for a defining battle. “That’s when I feel real good,” he says softly in a gripping tone Merchant will remember being used by great fighters in history.
Not even the current ruin or the impossible salvation of boxing will matter as Prograis walks to the ring to fight a man as dangerous and determined as Zepeda. It will be enough, in those lonely and ferocious moments, that boxing will again feel like nothing else.
