Prograis hasn’t forgotten Louisiana roots
Fighter misses New Orleans, but Houston key to his success
When you meet Regis Prograis, it’s hard to see anything but his New Orleans roots.
He has the city’s name tattooed across his chest alongside images of the Superdome and his hometown’s skyline.
When you talk to him, you get more of the same as the Creole lilt in his voice smoothly turns a conversation about moving “out here” into “outchea.”
In Prograis’ case, “outchea” is the lifehe built after fleeing his family’s New Orleans home as a 16-year-old the day before Hurricane Katrina wrecked the only city he knew.
His mother Shelita’s decision to take Regis and his sister with her to live in Houston — followed closely by Regis’ first trip to the city’s historic Savannah Boxing Gym — is what set Prograis on a career path that has the former super lightweight world champion fighting on his first payper-view card when he battles Juan Heraldez on Saturday at the Alamodome.
When Prograis (24-1, 20 knockouts) steps into the ring for his 10-round super lightweight bout, he’ll have all the makings of a Louisiana star, wearing the mask of the Rougarou, amythical werewolf-like creature said to roam the bayous, according to the Cajun legend where Prograis gets his nickname.
Once the Rougarou mask is tossed, anything Prograis shows in the ring will be all Houston.
Prograis was just starting to dabble in boxing as aNew Orleans teenager, dipping his toe into the sport after being warned that he was punching kids too hard in his karate classes and in make-shift fights his high school football teammates would organize as a lark in a locked classroom.
Walking into Houston’s most famous boxing gym showed him fighting can be a lot more than informal high school Toughman contests.
Prograis considers himself a historian. He reads instead of watching TV — unless it’s clips of old fights — and when he recounts his early days at Willie Savannah’s gym, it feels like he’s putting together his ownanthology of Houston’s greatest fighters.
“It was great, bro,” Prograis said. “There was just so much talent everywhere I looked in the gym. Juan Diaz was a three- or four-time world champion. Rocky Juarez was a big name. Raul Marquezwas in there. Evander Holyfield was in the gym. Shane Mosley, I met him there. Oscar de la Hoya stopped by the gym. Hyland Williams, Erislandy Lara, Guillermo Rigondeaux. The Charlo brothers are a year younger than me and they were already there.”
It didn’t take long for Prograis to realize the hand speed and power that impressed his New Orleans classmates actually were special.
“It was an eye-opener that I could do this, too,” Prograis said. “There’s a lot of boxers in New Orleans, but none of them made it big and made a lot of money. Then, I’m in Houston at Savannah and these people around me areworld champions. I watched what they did, how they worked. That right there was my inspiration, and I knew I could do it, too.”
Prograis’ progression took a leap forward four years laterwhen his mother decided it was time for her to move back home.
The 22-year-old Prograis was just starting to put together the beginnings of a life in Houston. He graduated from Westside High School, had met thewoman whowould become his wife and a professional boxing career seemed certain.
“That was tough, but my mom leaving and forcing me to make it on my own was one of the best things she ever did,” Prograis said. “It was sink or swim.”
Prograis started swimming.
It took just 16 professional fights and a little more than three years before he grabbed his first belt, the North American Boxing Federation super lightweight title with a win at Houston’s Bayou City Event Center. Two years later, he was a world champion, knocking out Julius Indongo for the World Boxing Council super lightweight crown in 2018.
Prograis celebrated each of those wins with a trip back to NewOrleans, but he credits the victories to his work-life in Houston.
“Houston is boxing,” Prograis said. “If I want to succeed, I have to stay in Houston. I miss New Orleans, of course, but this is my sacrifice.”
It’s a lesson Prograis briefly forgot when he temporarily moved his family — he and his wife, Racquel, have two kids with a third expected to be born any day now — to Los Angeles.
After that move, Prograis lost his first pro fight, a narrow majority decision defeat to Josh Taylor in London last year.
The pandemic means Prograis hasn’t fought since, giving him plenty of time to reflect. He insists if he had fought the Scottish fighter in America, he would have squeaked out the decision. He also thinks if he hadn’t forgotten that “Houston is boxing,” he would still have his belts.
After the loss to Taylor, Prograis moved his family to Katy where he says he’s back to eating and breathing boxing, spending large chunks of his days with trainer Bobby Benton at Houston’s no-frills Main Street Boxing Gym.
That means his focus is completely on Heraldez (160-1) and washing away his first taste of defeat.
Heraldez, who fights under Floyd Mayweather’s promotional banner, has taunted Prograis about his lone loss, claiming the 31year-old has squandered his chance to be the best 140-pound fighter in the world by slipping up and never earning a fight against someone like pound-forpound king Terence Crawford.
“He lost to Taylor, right?,” the 30-year-old Las Vegas resident said. “He never fought Crawford at 140. That would have been his chance to be elite. He didn’t do it. Now, it’s my time.”
Prograis is a favorite to wipe out Heraldez and move on to a possible fight against former world champion Adrien Broner or current 140-pound champion Jose Ramirez, but Heraldez’s barbs have Prograis’ full attention.
Eight years as a professional has taught Prograis to politely answer questions from reporters, even personalizing his answers by sprinkling in the reporter’s name in his retorts.
Heraldez, who has called Prograis “an average fighter,” has managed to rub some of that polish off Prograis’ front-facing personality and make him sound more like the braggadocios New Orleans kid fighting in high school classrooms.
After hearing Heraldez’s verbal jabs, Prograis’ polite veneer dissipates behind a suddenly Gumbo-thick Cajun accent: “I’ma (mess) this boy up.”