Prograis tried to get Benn to fight him at the welterweight limit of 147 pounds and then 149 pounds. Benn wouldn’t budge off a contracted catch weight of 150 pounds last week, nor would the British star agree to a rehydration restriction for fight night.

The weight limit for Prograis’ previous fight was 142 pounds, but boxing Benn (24-1, 14 KOs) on the Tyson Fury-Arslanbek Makhmudov undercard April 11 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London was an opportunity too good for Prograis to turn down. An informative conversation Prograis (30-3, 24 KOs) had with Terence Crawford a couple months ago helped convince the New Orleans native to look beyond Benn’s weight advantage and realize experience and skills could help the two-time junior welterweight champ beat Benn next month.

“I spar bigger guys all the time,” Prograis told The Ring. “And Imma be honest with you – Imma shout out Terence Crawford. I talked to him, and this was actually before the [Benn] fight got made. I asked him how did he take those shots from Canelo and he said because he got to keep his weight, basically. And he wasn’t fighting Conor Benn – he fought Canelo. I understand he’s Terence Crawford and how great he is.

“But still, he fought Canelo, and he went up two divisions and he still won and he still dominated. And I said, ‘How did you take those shots, man? It looked like you ate the shots from Canelo?’ And he said it really was the weight. He said he got hurt one time in his career by Gamboa, and that’s because he was too small. Then he went up in weight.”

Crawford came back to stop Cuba’s Gamboa in the ninth round of their June 2014 fight for Crawford’s WBO lightweight title. The Omaha, Nebraska native eventually became undisputed champion in the junior welterweight and welterweight divisions before he moved up from junior middleweight to super middleweight for his showdown with Alvarez on September 13 at a sold-out Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

The Mexican icon never hurt Crawford (42-0, 31 KOs), who outboxed Alvarez, won a unanimous decision and took The Ring, IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO 168-pound championships from him.

The super middleweight limit is closer to the weight at which Crawford walks around than any of the divisions in which the since-retired five-weight champ previously competed. Prograis’ natural weight is in the 160s, which makes him confident he’ll be able to take Benn’s best shots in a fight Netflix will stream worldwide.

“When you spar all these big guys, you don’t get hurt, so it’s the same thing in the fight,” Prograis said. “If you keep your natural weight, you’ll be good. I spar real big guys in the gym, and I’m cool. You know, the punches don’t hurt me at all. So, I take that into consideration, like sometimes it’s just the weight. This [conversation with Crawford] was maybe like two months ago or something like that … this was before I even knew about this Conor Benn fight. But this is what made me take it.”

Benn, 29, is The Ring’s fourth-ranked middleweight contender after avenging his unanimous points loss against English rival Chris Eubank Jr. in their 12-round rematch November 15 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. He hasn’t weighed in at less than 150½ pounds for a fight since April 2022, when Benn got down to 146½ pounds.

Prograis, 37, briefly boxed in the welterweight and junior middleweight divisions very early in his career. Mostly, though, he has fought at or near the junior welterweight maximum of 140 pounds for the past 11 years.