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Promoter Eddie Hearn reportedly will have Jaron ‘Boots’s Ennis defending against his IBF mandatory Karen Chukhadzhian in his next title defense on November 9th in his hometown of Philadelphia.
The $500,000 Stumbling Block
Hearns told Michael Benson he has a “super show” planned for November. Fans on social media are not pleased with Hearn’s decision to give up on the unification fight for Boots Ennis (32-0, 29 KOs) against WBO 147-lb champion Brian Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KOs), whose team wanted the $1.7 million offer increased by a mere $500K to $2.2 million.
It’s hard for fans to believe that Hearn would choose to give up on the Norman unification fight for Boots Ennis over a mere $500,000, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the money that the British promoter is accustomed to working with for his other fighters, like Anthony Joshua and Shakur Stevenson.
There’s no chance that Hearn would give up on setting up a fight for his Matchroom flagship fighter, Joshua if one of his opponents wanted the deal sweetened by $500K. If this had been Joshua, it would have gone differently.
For Hearn to give up on setting up an important fight for Boots, Ennis says a lot about how he’s looked at compared to the British promoter’s mega-star, Joshua.
Boots’ Passive Role in Career Management
It takes two to tangle. Hearn wouldn’t be going ahead with a rematch with Karen Chukhadzhian if Boots Ennis wasn’t on board.
If he stood up and voiced his anger to his British promoter Hearn, letting him know he’s wrecking his career, taking him down the same path that he did with former Matchroom fighter Demetrius Andrade, it’s very likely the $500K would be magically produced to get the Brian Norman Jr. fight made.
For Ennis to do this, he has to agree with how Hearn matches him. He’s matching him in low-level fights, like Karen Chukhadzhian and David Avanesyan. If Ennis were more assertive with his career, he’d get the fights he needs to become a superstar.
Cheap Matchmaking Hinders Ennis’ Star Potential
Ennis will not become a PPV attraction on the cheap, fighting scrubs, hoping that fans will be so impressed by his knockouts of these lesser fighters that they’ll want to pay to see him. It rarely works like that, and when it does, it often comes late in a fighter’s career, when he’s in his mid to late 30s, as we’ve seen with Terence Crawford.
Ennis already beat Karen by a wide 12-round unanimous decision, winning by the scores 120-108 x 3 last year on January 7th in an unwatchable fight that resembled a clueless-looking cat chasing its prey around the ring for twelve boring rounds. Karen made Boots look bad in that fight, showing he didn’t know how to cut off the ring and couldn’t adapt.
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