Oscar Duarte received some bad news today with Regis Prograis suffering a shoulder injury, and pulling out of their headliner fight on February 15th at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
He’ll be off the card unless Golden Boy can find a quick replacement to face light welterweight Duarte in the main event. What a shame because that was the one shining clash on this DAZN event.
Prograis Injury
The co-feature on the card is super middleweight Darius Fulghum vs. Winfred Harris. If Golden Boy Promoters want to save the event, they can slide that match into the main event and perhaps won’t mind.
The Ring reports that the former two-time 140-lb champion Prograis (29-3, 24 KOs) suffered an injury. Prograis is 36, so it’s unsurprising that he’s gotten hurt in training.
Regis has lost his last two fights and has been winless since his questionable 12-round split decision two years ago against Danielito Zorrilla on June 17, 2023. Many fans believe Prograis lost that fight, too.
Golden Boy was hoping for Duarte (28-2-1, 22 KOs) to use this fight against Prograis to showcase his skills to pick up his third straight victory to position him for a title shot.
Promoters should always have a backup handy when using older fighters in the headliner or co-feature spot. The chances of them not making it through training camp without pulling out are too high not to have someone waiting to step in.
Given how poor Regis has looked in his last three fights, it shouldn’t be hard for Golden Boy to find someone to replace him with equal talent. The only issue with that is Duarte wouldn’t have much time to prepare for that fighter. The last thing Oscar De La Hoya would want is for Duarte to get beaten again and have all that hard work put into rebuilding him go down the drain.
Since losing to Ryan Garcia by an eighth-round knockout in December 2023, Duarte, 29, has won his last two fights, beating Joseph Diaz and Botirzhon Akhmedov.