Subriel Matias apparently hasn’t thought very highly of Regis Prograis as some of his other peers. (photo by Ryan Hafey)
Matias, the IBF junior welterweight titlist from Puerto Rico, said in a recent interview that he formed a somewhat low opinion of New Orleans’ Prograis, a two-time 140-pound titlist, after they fought on the same card in 2018 at Lakefront Arena in New Orleans.
Earlier this month, Prograis lost his WBC 140-pound title to former undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney in what was Haney’s first fight in the weight class. Haney did not lose a single round on the judges’ scorecards and even dropped Prograis early on in their 12-round affair.
The 31-year-old Matias wishes he had been in Haney’s place to knock Prograis off from his perch.
“To be honest, I had the opportunity to fight on the same stage as Prograis in one of his previous fights and I realized then that he wasn’t all that,” Matias said in an interview conducted by Matchroom Boxing on its YouTube page. “And I wanted to be the fighter to kind of remove that mask in a way that Devin Haney did last week.”
Matias is now setting his crosshairs on 25-year-old Haney.
“First I want to face him because I want to take that mask off him and show that he’s not what everybody believes he is,” Matias said. “And that he has something that belongs to me, which is that WBC title, and I want all the belts.”
Haney’s father and manager, Bill Haney, claimed that he had offered Matias a multi-million dollar deal to fight his son immediately after the Prograis win but that has been vigorously denied by Matias’s own manager.
Matias (20-1, 20 KOs) is coming off a sixth-round stoppage of Shohjahon Ergashev last month at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas on the David Benavidez vs. Demetrius Andrade card. It was his fifth stoppage win in a row since dropping a decision to Petros Ananyan.
Sean Nam is the author of Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing.