On November 27 in Carson, California, the top American super lightweights Regis Progrese and Jose Zepeda will fight for the vacant WBC world title.
I expect the underdog to take the start of the fight and may even create some sort of scoring margin, which he will try to keep at the expense of higher efficiency. Progrese will need time to get used to his opponent, but in the second half of the fight he will take over the initiative and in the championship rounds will be close to an early victory.
Progrese may not be as technically trained, but he’s an unrealistically talented boxer by nature: flexible, nimble, plastic, with excellent timing and incredible reflexes, tough and with a sturdy beard. Also stylistically much more versatile. He finished his amateur career with 87-7 record. He’s been boxing professionally since 2012. The journeymen run-in ended in 2015. Then fights for regional titles followed, and in 2018 Progrese won the WBC “interim” title by knocking out former unified world champion Julius “Blue Machine”Indongo. In 2018, Regis began his journey in the World Boxing Super Series (WBSS) tournament by beating former world champion Terry “Turbo” Flanagan and then taking the WBA title from Kiryl “Mad bee” Relikh. In the decisive match of the tournament, he lost by split decision to Josh “The Tartan Tornado” Taylor.
Since then he fought three fights and gained three early victories. The defeated were Juan Heraldez, Ivan “El Terrible” Redkach and Tyrone “The Mighty Celt”McKenna.
Zapeda is a very strong contrarian. He’s a smart, skilled, technical, cold-blooded, quick decision maker. He’s got great movement, creates nice attacking angles, knows how to take down his opponent and counter hard. But he doesn’t have a high mindset and often loses initiative in the second half of the match. For this reason he prefers unhurried tempo and long (rarely middle) range. In amateurs he fought 16 fights with 15 wins. He’s been competing professionally since 2009, alternating fights in the US and Mexico. In 2015 he made his first attempt to become the world champion, but due to an injury he withdrew during his fight with Flanagan.
He boxed in Mexico until 2018, then got a second chance to fight for the title – gave a competitive fight, losing minimally to WBC champion Jose “Jaguar” Ramirez. Since 2019, Zapeda has fought in the United States. He has wins over Jose “Sniper” Pedraza, Kendo Castaneda, Ivan “The Beast” Baranchyk, Henry “Hank” Lundy and Josue “The Prodigy” Vargas.
Age – 33;
Height – 1.73;
Division – lightweight;
Reach – 1.70;
Stance – Southpaw;
Statistics – 27-1 (23 Knockouts)
Age – 33;
Height – 1.73;
Division – lightweight;
Reach – 1.79;
Stance – Southpaw;
Statistics – 36-2, 2N/C (28 Knockouts).
Where will this fixture be played?
The event will take place at Dignity Health Sports Park, CA, USA.
Which bookmaker has the best odds for this game?
We recommend checking out the odds for the professional heavyweight boxing tournament: Regis Progrese vs Jose Zapeda at 1xBet.