Regis Prograis recently said he was targeting a fight with Mikey Garcia, and now it looks like that really might be the case.
ESPN’s Mike Coppinger reports that the two are in “advanced talks,” confirmed by promoter Eddie Hearn, and that the potential 140 lb clash would take place in the fall on DAZN.
The 33-year-old Garcia (40-1, 30 KO) has fought three times at 140 in his career. The first was a comeback tune-up after two-and-a-half years out of the ring, beating Elio Rojas in 2016. He beat Adrien Broner in a money fight in 2017, and followed that up by taking the IBF belt from Sergey Lipinets in 2018.
In his last three fights, Garcia went back down to 135 to unify two belts by beating Robert Easter Jr, then jumped to 147 for an uninspired loss to Errol Spence Jr and a competitive win over Jessie Vargas.
Prograis (26-1, 22 KO) is one of the sport’s more entertaining top fighters, in and out of the ring; out of it, he’s one of the great modern characters in the game, someone who really spices things up and does so with more than just trash talk and gossipy headlines. He’s a unique dude for boxing.
The 32-year-old southpaw was last in action on April 17, beating goofy Ivan Redkach via weird ass sixth round TKO.
When we talked about this fight being possible the other day, the general belief is it’s a damn good fight to make, and that it probably wouldn’t happen (partially because it’s a damn good fight to make). But now it looks like it really might happen. However the Paradigm thing plays out, Mikey ain’t getting Manny Pacquiao next, and he already hasn’t fought in 16 months and has wasted long stretches of his career before. Prograis is quite possibly as good a fight as is out there for Mikey right now, and we know Regis wants it.