By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Regis Prograis watched with great interest from ringside as Mikey Garcia beat Adrien Broner last Saturday night.

The rising super lightweight contender expected Broner to beat Garcia. The powerful southpaw from New Orleans planned to call out Broner afterward, but he would just as soon accept a fight against Garcia.

“I would love that fight,” Prograis told BoxingScene.com. “I would love to fight Mikey Garcia. I see a lot of holes. I feel like if he fights me like that, like he fought [Saturday night], I’ll hurt him.”

The undefeated Prograis demolished undefeated Joel Diaz Jr. in his last fight. The Houston resident dropped Diaz four times before their scheduled 10-round fight was stopped in the second round June 9 in Verona, New York.

Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs) obviously is a significant step up in class from Diaz (23-1, 19 KOs), but the 28-year-old Prograis (20-0, 17 KOs) is confident he is ready to beat elite opponents at 140 pounds.

“I definitely wanna fight Garcia,” said Prograis, who’s promoted by Lou DiBella. “That’s a real good fight for me. I’ve been calling out Broner for a while, but now, what is he? He’s nothing. Of course he still has a name, but if Broner fights like that against me, I’ll hurt him bad. I think I’ll be the first person to knock Broner out.

“But I think I can beat Garcia, too. He beat Broner, but he didn’t impress me. The only thing he impressed me with is that he bit down. He’s definitely tough, but to me, I feel like he faded in the later rounds. He started dropping his hands and he wasn’t as sharp. He got hit more and he started dropping his hands. I would love that fight.”

Broner’s inability to affect Garcia surprised Prograis, who’s ranked No. 2 by the WBC and No. 9 by the WBA. He was disappointed, too, because Prograis suspects Broner (33-3, 24 KOs, 1 NC) was more concerned about avoiding Garcia’s power than trying to win their 12-round, 140-pound fight at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

“I felt like Broner fought a couple of rounds,” Prograis said. “But at the same time, I feel like he just shelled up and tried to avoid getting knocked out. He didn’t wanna get hit with no big shots and he just covered up the whole time.

“He had some very brief moments, where he looked all right. He caught him with a couple of shots, but I didn’t see him throw 10 body shots in the whole fight. Maybe he lost it. I don’t know. It surprised that he got blew out like that. I felt like if Mikey was gonna win, it was gonna be closer. I thought Broner was gonna win, but he got blew out.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.