Were Taylor and Prograis always overrated or have they just past their prime?

Rubbish

 

Rolly says hi

 

My personal take on this is as follows:-

The Josh Taylor that was in against Prograis and Ramirez was 100% a different fighter from the one that split with the McGuigans then had a bunch of injury and weight cut issues - all well documented.

I think Haney is a terrible style matchup for any version of Prograis, whose inability to cut the ring was clearly exposed.

The Taylor that beat Prograis and Ramirez though, I think that version againts the version of Haney last night would have seen a very different fight - don't get me wrong Haney was excellent but think the styles would have made it quite a bit different, and feel that TTT would have been able to cut the ring better.

I believe that after getting to Undisputed, Taylor maybe lost sight of a few things, partied too hard, left Shane McGuigan, who he had a GREAT rapport with and managed to get the best out of him - he inarguably regressed under Ben Davidson, and looked a shell of his best self against Catterall and Lopez - some of that was styles and credit to El Gato and Lopez, but a lot was on Taylor. He should have moved up to 147 after the Ramirez fight, or at very least stayed with Shane.

Remains to be seen whether he has anything left - maybe the hunger to prove he was elite will come back @147, but that division is stacked, and hard to take the Taylor we saw losing to Lopez against any of the 147 top dogs - or even Haney last night tbh.

I'd love to see Josh prove folks wrong on this as I do believe he was elite, and his run to undisputed was a great one - (much tougher than Crawfords in comparison).

The other thing to consider in all this, is Haney really looked a level above last night - he dominated Prograis, but was that style, was it Regis being shot to ****? How much did Haney LEARN in his controversial 'win' over Loma?

All very interesting, but I don't really like the revisionist history aspect of stuff.

As much as I dislike Haney (and his pops), similar to Lopez (and his pops), I'd rather just give him the credit - sure Prograis has slipped since his narrow defeat to Taylor, but Haney's style was a bad matchup even then I think - Taylor could have made things easier by keeping things at range, but his tendency to get into a scrap gave Prograis an in to the fight. Haney was way too disciplined to do that.

My 2c

 

When Taylor beat Prograis, this board hyped him to stratospheric leves. And I know exactly why lmao. It's kind of sad.

 

I never thought Taylor was the top P4P fighter he was made out to be. I just wasn't impressed with his skillset. He was just a big guy who knew how to use his size to beat smaller fighters by physically dominating them. Opponents like Pograis flattered his ability, they stood right in front of him and allowed him to use his size, the first guy who boxed him, used movement, knew how to use his forearm and shoulder to keep the bigger Taylor off him and make Taylor try and beat them on the outside exposed his inability to fight from range. Lopez then again exposed that same vulnerability.

Maybe Taylor was struggling at the weight, he said after the Catterall fight he couldn't make weight and was moving up. But then he didn't do that. Instead he ducked Catterall, tried to fight someone else at 140 and when that didn't happen fought Lopez at 140. So if he was really dead at the weight why stay at the weight? He said he made the weight fine for Lopez?

As for him leaving the McGuigan's maybe that did change things but then I thought he was overrated with them and without them, for me nothing changed. So for me he was simply never as good as he was made out to be.

As for Pograis, his whole rep was that he gave Taylor a tough fight. But he again never impressed me as much as the hype around him. Yeah he has power and speed but many fighters do at the top level. His skills were pretty basic, in areas like movement, counter punching, defence etc he was nothing special. He struggled badly in his previous fight and so people shouldn't have been shocked that Haney with his style dominated him.

It seems too much of a coincidence that both fighters fell off just as they faced their best opposition. For me 140 was weak and guys like Taylor and Pograis were simply the best of a poor bunch and when 2 top guys from 135, they exposed the difference between 2 of the top guys at 135 compared to 2 of top guys at 140.

 

Is that why about half were picking Prograis to win?

 

Why not both?

Even in a fairly weak division, you don't collect the belts as quick as Taylor did without being pretty talented, especially when you look how few fights he'd had as a pro...
He's clearly not quite what he was, but that doesn't mean that the guys coming up weren't at least as good as the guys that had previously been towards the top end of the division.

It doesn't take much stagnation or loss of motivation/hunger (how many times have we seen someone top the mountain only to implode?) for guys coming up to usurp you.

Six months can be a long time in boxing, let alone a few years.

 

Me, Ellerbe and Box33 said he was overrated and that it wouldn't be close. Reality is he was never that good and Haney exposed that. Too many get overly impressed by speed and power which Pograis does possess and too many boxing fans ignore the less flashy aspects of boxing like defence, footwork etc. Boxing is a sport that relies far more on skills than many and simply being a good athlete with power and speed will only take you so far in the end at the very top level plenty of fighters have speed and power, but few have the technical skills to match.

I agree that Haney was a level above him, But I don't even think Haney is that great as the vs a faded Loma showed. I think he's P4P marginally better than Fulton, a very good fighter but not great, so Pograis just lost to a guy who's really not even great to begin with, which just goes to show how many were overrating Pograis.

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...s-prograis-breakdown-prediction.709818/page-2

 

Two guys who ducked Matias since 2019 and still won't give Matias a fight in 2024.

 

Taylor and Prograis were good fighters who became shot just as a new crop came up to play; but I have no sympathy because both did it to themselves. They insisted on staying at a weight they outgrew and it caught up to both in humiliating fashion, and now has everyone looking at both funny.