Regis Prograis was Friday night’s big winner following his two round destruction of recent world title challenger Julius Indongo on Showtime, but it seemed to me that Indongo looked terrible just as much as “Rougaroo” looked good. Wild swinging Ivan Baranchyk fought a slightly more measured style to big up his own career best win in the co-main event as well.
I saw this result before I got to see the fight. Julius Indongo (22-2, 11 KOs) is a talented and skilled fighter, so in my head this must have been a crazy impressive performance from Regis “Rougaroo” Prograis (21-0, 18 KOs). Many have been very high on the Houston based, New Orleans born prospect for some time and this result looked like a pretty epic coming out party at world level.
And then I watched the fight. It was a strange one.
Offensively, Indongo looked solid in the first round. He used his jerky, lengthy style to move around the ring and pepper Prograis at will. Rougaroo showed little ability to or concern about defending himself from the Namibian’s sharp shots from the outside as he marched forward. Yet, none of this matter because Julius Indongo is not yet recovered from the beating Terence Crawford put on him and may never be.
Every single shot Prograis landed on the former unified titleholder hurt him. I mean every shot. At the end of the first, Indongo was wobbled and dropped by a jab. Sure, Prograis has some very real power, but this sort of lack of punch resistance goes well beyond that. Indongo was downright fragile in the ring, both physically and mentally.
It was not a surprise when Regis put him down hard in the second round. It looked like the breeze from missed punches might be enough to accomplish that anyway. Indongo rose, but one epic left hand from Prograis put him back down. The same exact thing repeated itself one more time before the fight was waved off.
Yes, this is a great win for Regis Prograis on paper that sets him up for a world title fight, likely in his next bout, against the winner of next weekend’s low key quality Jose Ramirez versus Amir Imam vacant title fight on ESPN. Yes, that will be an outstanding fight regardless of which young fighter he ends up in against too. I just don’t want anyone to read too much into this performance going forward. Rougaroo remains an elite prospect, but I didn’t actually think he looked good here. Prograis brought no defense and knocked out a fighter without the a chin, the ability to take a body shot, or any confidence in there. Julius Indongo was actually a step down in competition last night.
In the co-main event, Ivan “The Beast” Baranchyk (18-0, 11 KOs) scored a career best win over late replacement former lightweight title challenger Petr Petrov (38-6-2, 19 KOs). Baranchyk is a wild, aggressive fighter in the ring, but he managed to keep it mostly under control in South Dakota. He still winged away with some wild hooks that through him way off balance, but nothing so bad as has been his modus operandi historically.
Baranchyk dropped Petrov three times along the way and should have been credited with another knockdown in the third. The Russian-Spaniard was very brave in defeat, but he was overwhelmed by size and strength here on short notice in his junior welterweight debut. Stylistically, he was perfect for the Belorussian to ply his craft against as he stood in the pocket and fought back all night. When the stoppage came in the eighth round it was kind of at an odd moment where Petrov wasn’t really in much immediate danger, but the beating he had taken overall did warrant it anyway in my view.
I am still not high on Baranchyk as a prospect, however. His style is crazy reckless and I don’t see the power that is attributed to him in the ring. He can punch, sure, but he lands too many clean shots to little effect to be the monstrous power puncher that the ShoBox team has hyped him up to be. It is easy to see why people feel that way that given the sheer amount of physical force he visibly puts into every shot, but the results of the punches landing do not tell that tale to be true.
New Zealand heavyweight prospect Junior Fa (14-0, 8 KOs) picked up a really uninspiring majority decision win over Detroit’s Craig Lewis (14-2-1, 8 KOs) in a fight that I didn’t know would be aired at all. I wish it wasn’t. Fatigue set in early for this ugly fight. Fa has looked better than this before for sure, but he is not a blue chip prospect and this could have been easily scored a draw.
