Regis Prograis returning to Houston, Texas
Now that the green light to return to action has been signaled, boxers all over the world are scrambling to be among the first back to battle. Within those ranks, former WBA world super lightweight champion Regis “Rougarou” Prograis (24-1, 20 KO’s) has decided to make some major personal changes for the betterment of his career.
When reminiscing on training camps gone past, then evaluating his present surroundings, Prograis has come to the conclusion that his current LA digs are a hair too cozy to maintain his killer edge. It’s largely due to that reason that Prograis believes now is the perfect time to return to his far grittier Houston stomping grounds.
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For Prograis, the Lone Star State offered the tastiest situational gumbo of home living conditions, proximity to coaches and access to top flight sparring than any other location. In terms of sparring in particular, that is an element of the region that the Rougarou has an acute longing for, as he explained to Fight Hype.
“So, we moving! We made the decision to leave my beautiful house out here in LA, my beautiful neighborhood and we are going to even more beautiful, but in a different state. We going back to Texas. We are going back to Houston.”
“Here, I actually feel like I live on vacation and it’s a good thing, but it’s not for me and my career right now. I feel like I don’t need to be feeling like I live on vacation, you know? I really need to be around what made me hungry in the first place. Just around my trainers and my whole success when I lived in Houston is like I lived in training camp.
“Here I feel like I just said, I feel like I live on vacation.”
IRON SHARPENS IRON
Not only was Prograis able to obtain a great deal of sparring, he used to marvel at the high quality of the sessions. Having honed his craft in those unforgiving sessions of educational violence, the Rougarou was gifted the tools he would need to become champion.
Being starkly aware of this, Prograis is all too happy to leave his LA dream world and return to his more rugged training grounds.
“At the same time, my gym in Houston is dogs, you know? It’s just like savages in the gym and I need to be around that. Like I said, all my success, it was because I lived in training camp.
“Training non-stop because its so many good fighters in the gym. So I was sparring with those dudes all the time and here I spar when I am in training camp. Out there, I was sparring three times a week.”
It’s exciting and encouraging to see that the already talented former champion is itching to leave his cozy compound to dive back in the nasty thorn bush of Houston training. Yet, until he actually makes that move, we will just have to stay tuned to see if these alterations produce the benefits that he is shooting for.
“I knew I was going to go back. I just didn’t know when, but those kind of things: the quarantine, the lockdown, having another baby, all of those things kind of just came, and like in one moment. So it was like ‘okay, alright, this is the decision.'”
“I really didn’t want to go back. I still love it out here, but I feel like sometimes it’s not about what you want, its what you need. I definitely feel like I need to go back out there and basically get back to it.”
By: Bakari Simpson
