Random thoughts: Prograis-Zepeda a good show, proved many wrong
Dubious Whyte-Franklin scoring; one gem left in 2022; Jermall Charlo barking up wrong tree; props to Garcia, Davis; humor in Spence-Crawford mess; Thurman undeserving mandatory; I'm done with Munguia
A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months later it also became available for paid subscriptions for additional content — and as a way to help keep this newsletter going and for readers to support independent journalism. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription please consider it. If you have already, I truly appreciate it! Also, consider a gift subscription for the Fight Freak in your life.
A whole slew of boxing random thoughts…
When the relatively unknown MarvNation Promotions won the purse bid for the Regis Prograis-Jose Zepeda vacant WBC junior welterweight title fight for $2.4 million — a much higher bid than most figured the bout would generate — to beat three other promoters it looked at first as though we were in for another Triller situation.
Remember how Triller had come out of nowhere and bid a shocking amount to win rights to the Teofimo Lopez-George Kambosos Jr. lightweight title fight last year and handled the entire situation like a hand grenade before defaulting on its bid and later leaving a trail of unpaid bills related to other events?
But credit where credit is due. MarvNation and partner Legendz Entertainment are not Triller. They put on a first-class event and, by all accounts, things ran smoothly and did not leave people threatening lawsuits to get their money. In fact, I heard from various folks who worked with them on the show that they would welcome working with them again.
They made their deadlines, mounted a legitimate promotion, hired experienced pros to work the event in terms of production and publicity, put on a solid undercard, a quality telecast and it turned out to be an entertaining PPV from top to bottom. Hopefully, they will remain involved in boxing and continue to try to put on top-level events.
(In the spirit of full disclosure: they did a small sponsorship with Fight Freaks Unite during fight week. They were a pleasure to deal with.)
As for the main event, I thought Prograis turned in a superb performance in his 11th-round KO of Zepeda. It wasn’t the fight of the year as some thought it could be but it was an excellent and entertaining fight albeit one Prograis dominated. Prograis may have lost a razor-close majority decision that could have gone either way in 2019 in a unification fight with Josh Taylor, who went on to become undisputed champion (before vacating various belts), but you can make a legit argument that Prograis is the best 140-pounder out there right now — and it’s a strong division.
Prograis will soon be ordered to fight former unified titlist Jose Ramirez in a mandatory defense. Whether the fight will actually happen remains to be seen but I