Regis Prograis denied that he delivered a low blow to Ivan Redkach in their Saturday night fight on the undercard of the Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren event.
Prograis won by technical knockout after Redkach was stretchered out apparently in agony. It was claimed that the former light welterweight champion had struck his opponent below the belt with a cheap shot, but replays, and Prograis, said otherwise.
Speaking to the DAZN Boxing Show, Prograis said: “I never thought I’d hit him with a low blow. I never ever throw a low blow.
“I know you can make mistakes, but I don’t throw low blows. No matter if it’s a right-handed fighter or a left-handed fighter.
“So I do feel it wasn’t low. I felt it wasn’t low. For him to do all that I knew they have to prove it. I knew when he went down he was causing all that confusion and all that stuff.
“The crowd was very intimate, I was talking to the crowd and stuff. So his wife was cursing me out. I’m going back and forth with her. The referee was like, ‘I’m going to disqualify you, you keep saying stuff.’”
Prograis continued and suggested that his opponent feigned injury just to get out of the ring.
“I looked on the screen and I saw it and it was clear - it wasn’t low.
“I think the punch landed, but it definitely wasn’t low.
“I’m not going to say I hurt him in some kind of way, I think that he just wanted to get out. He really wanted a way out of that fight, that’s what happened.”