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Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis’ growth as a fighter will be tested by Karen Chukhadzhian in their rematch on November 9th at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
In Ennis’ fight against Chukhadzhian (24-2, 13 KOs) last year on January 7th, he couldn’t cut off the ring and was missing badly with homerun swings, trying to knock him out. Boots Ennis won every round of the fight but didn’t look impressive.
In the rematch, Boots (32-0, 29 KOs) will be defending his IBF welterweight title against Chukhadzhian in the main event, and fans will be looking to see if he’s improved his game.
“What’s the super fight for him? Let’s look at it realistically. It’s not Terence Crawford. He’s not going to fight Boots unless it’s ridiculous money, and he’s going to take it,” said commentator Ade Oladipo to DAZN Boxing, talking about who is the super fight for Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis. “It is one of the big 140 guys coming up? Is it Teofimo Lopez? Is that the fight he’s looking for?”
“I don’t think there’s a super fight out there for him right now because I don’t think there’s a super fight potential at 140 or 154,” said Chris Mannix about Ennis. “I think his bigger fights are going to be at 154. He wants to be a unified champion before he moves up. So, I think he wants to get one more title shot.”
There are no super fights for Ennis at 147, and he’s making things more difficult for himself by choosing not to move up to 154. The best fights are at junior middleweight for Ennis, and he’s got to understand that he’s going to be avoided at 147 by the best fighters in the division.
“I think Brian Norman is his most likely opponent out there. I think they can get over the line [in the negotiations]. I think if you’re Boots, you can’t be thinking about mega-fights,” said Mannix. “You have to be thinking about good fights. Right now, he hasn’t been in a good to really good fight yet.”
Hearn failed to negotiate a unification fight with the WBO welterweight champion after choosing not to increase his $1.7 million offer to $2.2 million for a match with Ennis. He seems to believe that Norman Jr. will eventually lower his asking price, but that may not happen, and Ennis isn’t getting any younger.
If Hearn can’t make that fight next or against one of the other champions for Ennis, he needs to move up to 154 and try and get fights against the top guys in that division.
“He’s been in some decent fights, but he hasn’t been in a title unification fight yet. He hasn’t been in a world title fight at 154. He hasn’t been in with someone like Vergil Ortiz, who I think is a super fight for him at some point down the line,” said Mannix.
If and when it happens, Vergil Ortiz Jr would be an excellent fight for Ennis. Promoter Eddie Hearn reacted to the rumors of Ennis fighting Ortiz in February, saying that they’re not true, but he’d like to make that fight. That might require His Excellency Turki Alalshikh to step forward to finance it because Vergil Jr. won’t take a risky fight against Boots without it being a big money affair.
“In this fight against Chukhadzhian, I think we’re going to learn if Boots Ennis is growing. When I watched the first fight with Chukhadzhian, he didn’t know how to cut the ring off. He was following the guy around and that allowed Chukhadzhian to go the full 12 rounds. This fight, he knows what the guy is going to do. He knows how he’s going to fight,” said Mannix.
Ennis, 27, has fought two sluggers, Roiman Villa and David Avanesyan, since his fight against Chukhadzhian last year, but he didn’t have to cut off the ring against them because they were standing right in front of him. He did get hit a lot in both of those fights, and looked vulnerable on defense.
“We’re going to learn if Boots has grown his game to the point where he can cut that ring off and land the kind of punches that guy out,” said Mannix about Boots and Chukhadzhian.
Boots didn’t look improved in his recent fight against David Avanesyan on July 13th. He was the same fighter who had labored to an Unimpressive 12-round unanimous decision against Chukhadzhian last year on January 7th, 2023.
Avanesysan, 35, was too old to take advantage of the holes in Ennis’ game that Karen had exposed earlier, but he did land a lot of shots on him before getting stopped in the fifth round in Philadelphia.
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