Former undisputed super-lightweight champion, Josh Taylor, has laid out his prediction ahead of the likely upcoming clash between Regis Prograis and Devin Haney, for the WBC 140lb title.
Taylor defeated Prograis by majority decision in 2019 to unify the IBF and WBA world titles, before conquering Jose Carlos Ramirez in 2021 to claim the undisputed crown. However, the Scotsman vacated three of his world titles, before losing his final belt to Teofimo Lopez back in June.
Prograis defeated Jose Zepeda by eleventh-round knockout last year for the vacant WBC title, before edging out a controversial split-decision win against Danielito Zorrilla in his first title defence.
Now, he seems set to face the undisputed lightweight champion, Devin Haney, who is moving into the division after conquering the 135lb scene and Taylor believes that the 24-year-old will achieve further success at his new weight, he told Boxing News.
“I think that’s a great fight, they’re two very good fighters. Obviously, I shared the ring with Prograis and me and him had a good dust up, I’ve not shared the ring with Haney but I’ve met him a couple of times and saw him in training and stuff, he’s very sharp.”
“In my opinion, I just think that Devin Haney is a little bit too young, too fresh, too sharp. Going off of their last performances, I’ve seen highlights of the Prograis fight, I haven’t seen the full fight, but he didn’t look too clever in his last fight. Haney boxed [Vasyl] Lomachenko and that was a great performance and a great fight, very high level and skilled.”
“I thought Haney looked very sharp, so just going off of them two performances, if I was a betting man, I would probably placing my money on Haney.”
After long-winded negotiations, an announcement for Prograis-Haney is reportedly imminent, with reports suggesting that the American duo will meet in the ring on December 9th at the Chase Center in San Francisco.