Regis Prograis on how horror of Hurricane Katrina moulded him into the best 10st fighter in the world

IF Regis Prograis did not have tributes to his beloved New Orleans tattooed painfully all over his body, his description of Hurricane Katrina as the ‘best thing that ever happened to me’ would seem sick.

The WBA super-lightweight champion of the world was just 16-years-old when approximately 1,800 people were killed and around £100billion of damage was done by the 2005 disaster.

Hopes and dreams were washed away with the homes and bodies of powerless victims who could not escape the 175mph winds and ruthless floods that devastated the region.

Louisana icon Prograis escaped with little more than the clothes on his back but gained a profound new outlook that helped him rebuild his life in Houston, which was hit by a serious hurricane of its own in 2017, and become the best 10st fighter on the planet.

Ahead of his unification fight with Josh Taylor on October 26, which will decide the World Boxing Super Series final and owner of the Ring Magazine belt, the 30-year-old explained to SunSport how little a few more golden baubles would mean to him.

Prograis said: “Hurricane Katrina was probably the best thing that ever happened to me because it took away all my materialistic instincts at an early age.

“I learned in a split second that you can accumulate all this physical wealth; homes, houses, jewellery and clothes and God can just wipe it away from you and clean your whole slate.

“We had all of our stuff and it just vanished. It was crazy to see what water is capable of. You need water to live but I watched it become the most dangerous force you could imagine.

“Seeing those things does something to you, it changes you, but for me, it became the best thing that could have happened.”

Progais was a bad student, an American football player and a karate prospect before he fell in love with boxing, Mike Tyson and reading about the fighters that went before him.

What struck him most, from the hundreds of boxing books he has greedily devoured, is the tragic demise of so many millionaire champions who ended their lives penniless and all-too-often brain damaged.

Despite all his knowledge on the human heads incompatibility with taking repeated blows, especially through his passions like boxing American football, Prograis subscribes to his hero Muhammad Ali’s notion that it is better to live one day as a lion than a lifetime as a lamb.

Prograis said: “History is full of successful, rich, champion boxers who ended up broke, brain-damaged or dead and I want to break that mould and do something totally different.

“I read to learn what did and didn’t work for them but most of the old fighters, even if they did go broke, said they did not regret anything and would not take back a second of their lives.

“Muhammad Ali said ‘I lived a dream so don’t ever feel sorry for me’.

“Even when he had Parkinson’s disease and could barely talk, he refused to accept pity because he felt he had lived the lives of 100 men, doing things most people could never do.”

When Scottish hero Taylor enters the O2 ring, the 28-year-old Tartan Tornado will come face-to-face with an American Werewolf in London.

Prograis will be wearing the mask of the mythical Rougarou monster that lent him his nickname, a beast from Creole folktales much like the half-man-half-wolf creature from horror stories.

But unlike heavyweight world champion Deontay Wilder, who insists his mystical pre-fight mask helps him tap into his evil Bronze Bomber alter ego, Prograis reveals his costume is more likely to cause some slapstick comedy.

The 24-0 knockout artist said: “My mask doesn’t carry any power or alter-ego, it’s just a bit of showmanship.

“The mask helps me with tunnel vision because when you’re walking to the ring there are thousands of people trying to talk to you and distract you but the mask narrows your vision to just forward.

“Sometimes, though, that means I can barely see and have to lean on my trainer to guide me to the ring.

“There are some steep stairs you take to get into the ring and most of the time I have to be super careful to make sure I don’t fall in front of everyone.”

Prograis was embarrassed on his last trip to the UK, when heavyweight powerhouse Derek Chisora used their shared press conference to express his rage at being on Prograis and Taylor’s undercard.

The Brit brute insulted both the headliners but the American was so shocked and confused by the stunning outburst he missed most of the onslaught and has already forgiven Del Boy.

He said: “I did take personal offence at first because I did not know anything about Derek Chisora but luckily I did not really hear a lot of the things he was saying.

“That was probably a good thing because, when we watched the tape back and realised some of the stuff he had said to and about me, I realised that if I had heard on the stage it might have caused a problem between us and our teams.

“He didn’t have to talk bad about us, we are all prize fighters trying to get more money, he didn’t have to s*** on us to get it.

“But It’s over now and he ended with bad karma because he said all that and then his original opponent pulled out. You see, what goes around, comes around.”