Promoter Eddie Hearn was pleased with Jack Catterall’s 12-round unanimous victory over Regis Prograis on Saturday night, and he’s now ready to put Catterall in a title fight against the winner of the Liam Paro vs. Richardson Hitchins clash for the IBF light welterweight belt.
Catterall (30-1, 13 KOs) took care of a very good fighter in former WBA and WBC light welterweight champion Prograis (29-3, 24 KO) tonight, beating him in a two-knockdown performance at the Co-op Live Arena in Manchester, England.
Prograis, 35, looked like he mentally quit after suffering two knockdowns in round nine, courtesy of the southpaw Catterall’s left hands.
Earlier in the contest, Prograis had dropped Catterall in round five and had gotten the better of him in rounds in the first four rounds.
Going into round nine, it looked like Prograis was on his way to winning the fight, but it fell apart after he suffered the two knockdowns. Prograis failed to follow his corner’s instructions after the ninth round. They wanted him to go on the attack to ‘get back’ what he had lost in that round, but he didn’t do what they told him to. He just looked afraid of being knocked down again.
The judges scored the fight 117-108, 116-109 and 116-109.
The Two Knockdowns Made the Difference
If any of those three were interested in fighting Catterall, Hearn would obviously agree to match him against Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, or Teofimo Lopez. Given Catterall’s lack of popularity in the U.S., they wouldn’t bother fighting him, especially after the way he fought tonight with the movement he used.
Catterall will have to change his fighting style for him to get the big-money fights against the more popular fighters at 140.
“The two knockdowns were big for Jack for the general momentum of trying to get that [title] shot,” said Eddie Hearn to the media at the post-fight press conference, talking about his fighter Jack Catterall’s victory over Regis Prograis on Saturday night in Manchester.
“Jack punches a lot harder than people give him credit for. When people like Regis Prograis say, ‘He’s the best fighter I’ve been in with. If I put him in with Teofimo Lopez, Devin Haney, and Ryan Garcia, I believe he’s in 50-50 fights,” Hearn continued.
Ryan Garcia has too much power for Catterall, and he’ll catch him with one of his left hooks sooner or later. Teofimo Lopez has too much power for Catterall, as well. Hearn would have to offer Teo, Ryan, and Haney a lot of money to fight a guy with a defensive style like Catterall because he’s not popular and will not be unless he becomes more of a stationary fighter.
It’s unlikely that Hearn would want to pay massive amounts of money to those fighters just to help Catterall’s career. It would require His Excellency Turki Alalsikh to finance a fight involving one of those guys against Catterall, but it’s doubtful that he would. Turki has more exciting fights to put on his Riyadh Season cards.
Catterall’s fighting style is too similar to Shakur Stevenson’s, and American fans are not interested in watching that kind of fighter. Shakur has a following because he tweets a lot, and he was seen a lot on ESPN when he was with Top Rank. Catterall doesn’t have any of that going for him. He’s with Hearn, but he can’t convince U.S. fans to want to watch him fight faded fighters or ones they’re not familiar with.
“Paro against Catterall is a very good fight. I think it would be unwise to rule him in any fight against any 140-pounder. If he does fight Liam Paro, he’s had 12 rounds against a top-five southpaw [Prograis] tonight,” said Hearn.
