Jaron Ennis entered a Boys & Girls Club in his hometown of Philadelphia on Wednesday night to visit impressionable children looking to be inspired by the unbeaten IBF welterweight champion.
Those kids could learn a lot from how the understated, respectful Ennis goes about his business. A humble, hardworking grinder from a boxing family, the talented Ennis has patiently plodded through promotional and platform issues and ascended slowly but surely to the cusp of cracking the top 10 of pound-for-pound lists.
Ennis, who answers to the nickname “Boots,” is unlike most contemporaries. The explosive offensive fighter prefers to let his considerable abilities talk for him, rather than taking to social media to call out potential opponents he knows won’t accept his challenges.
Three nights after lending his time to this charitable cause, however, Ennis is figuratively requesting charitable donations from knowledgeable Philadelphia fight fans who know mismatches when they’re pitched to them.
The IBF is mostly to blame for ordering its 147-pound champion to partake in an utterly unnecessary mandated rematch against Ukraine’s Karen Chukhadzhian on Saturday night at Wells Fargo Center. Ennis (32-0, 29 KOs, 1 NC) still shouldn’t be absolved from blame for embracing what figures to be another relatively easy encounter with Chukhadzhian (24-2, 13 KOs), who lost every round on all three scorecards — 120-107 apiece — when he first faced Ennis in January 2023 in Washington, D.C.
Ennis won the then-vacant IBF interim welterweight title the night he shut out Chukhadzhian on the Gervonta Davis vs. Hector Luis Garcia undercard. He was elevated to permanent champion when Terence Crawford moved up to the junior middleweight division following his ninth-round stoppage of Errol Spence Jr. in their long-awaited title unification fight 15 months ago in Las Vegas.
In Ennis’ defense, he wants to fight Crawford to prove he is boxing’s best welterweight. Crawford, 37, has publicly acknowledged that he wants to face higher-reward opponents than Ennis, namely undisputed super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
Ennis’ issue, as it relates to fighting Chukhadzhian again, is that he still wants to become boxing’s fully unified welterweight champion.
“I want to be undisputed,” Ennis told Uncrowned. “It’s very important. I wanna be undisputed in multiple weight classes, so I gotta start at ’47. It’s gonna be ’47, ’54, ’60, and ’68. I’m trying to be undisputed in all four weight divisions, so it’s very important to my legacy.”
The 27-year-old Ennis needs to beat the Nov. 15 winner between WBC champ Mario Barrios vs. Abel Ramos, plus WBO champ Brian Norman and WBA champ Eimantas Stanionis to accomplish something Crawford did last summer.
In this diminished division, though, matching Crawford’s feat won’t enhance Ennis’ legacy the way it did for Crawford, one of the sport’s pound-for-pound kings. Crawford, a three-weight world champion from Omaha, Nebraska, dropped the previously unbeaten Spence three times on his way to adding the IBF, WBA, and WBC crowns to his WBO belt.
Beating Barrios or Ramos, Norman, and Stanionis would take Ennis another year or more to accomplish if he were to win those bouts. Taking that path would essentially waste another 12 to 18 months of Ennis’ physical prime, some of which has already been squandered while Ennis fought mostly ordinary opposition on Showtime while his late promoter, Cameron Dunkin, understandably protected his investment as Ennis appeared on cards arranged by Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions.
Ennis signed with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing in May once he and his father/manager, Derek “Bozy” Ennis, couldn’t come to an agreement to stay aligned with PBC and its new content partner, Amazon’s Prime Video. Hearn wisely brought Ennis to Philadelphia for his Matchroom debut, a five-round stoppage of Russian contender David Avanesyan on July 13.
That card drew a paid crowd of 14,119 to Wells Fargo Center, home of the NBA’s Sixers and NHL’s Flyers, and generated nearly $1.2 million in ticket revenue. There hadn’t been a crowd that large for boxing indoors in Philadelphia since late middleweight great Marvin Hagler defeated Philadelphia’s Bennie Briscoe by unanimous decision at the since-demolished Spectrum in August 1978.
They tried to return almost four months later with a title unification fight against Norman — a hard-hitting, fan-friendly, undefeated fighter from Conyers, Georgia — just outside of Atlanta. But negotiations fell apart over approximately $250,000, which left Ennis to either handle his mandatory obligation with Chukhadzhian or vacate his championship to move up to the 154-pound division.
Ennis “gave it some thought,” but he ultimately determined he should remain at welterweight for a fight no one outside of Chukhadzhian’s family and team could conceivably think is a constructive use of anyone’s time. The IBF inexplicably ordered Ennis-Chukhadzhian II because Chukhadzhian defeated another undeserving contender, Italy’s Pietro Rossetti, in an ill-conceived October 2023 elimination match, less than 10 months after Chukhadzhian was completely outclassed by Ennis.
Apparently, Chukhadzhian’s second-round stoppage of Venezuela’s Michel Marcano in his first fight after losing to Ennis warranted an eliminator to reposition him for a second shot at Ennis. Again, the IBF’s bizarre justification for Chukhadzhian’s advancement is more to blame than anything for this embarrassing rematch taking place Saturday night.
Ennis nonetheless could’ve taken a stand against strange sanctioning mandates, and better serviced his fan base — and strengthened his reputation — more than wins over Norman, Stanionis and Barrios or Ramos might do. Though it is audacious to tell a fighter who has worked hard and taken physical risks his whole life to give up a championship belt he cherishes, it is time Ennis starts attempting to realize his vast potential.
Moving up to 154 pounds, rather than dominating the overmatched Chukhadzhian again, would’ve enabled him to start that arduous process. Ennis himself admitted that the most appealing options for him compete within the 154-pound division, most notably Crawford — if Crawford were to change his mind — rival Vergil Ortiz Jr., the winner between Sebastian Fundora and Spence, Jermell Charlo, and the winner of the Serhii Bohachuk vs. Israil Madrimov match December 21 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“I ain’t gonna lie — 154 [is] popping,” Ennis said. “Everybody at 154 right now. Every fight at 154 is eye-catching for me. Everybody at 154 can fight. I feel like whoever I fight at 154, it’s gonna be a great name regardless. Like I said, 154 [is] popping right now. So, like I said, I would love to come to 154. But let me handle business at 147. I’ll be there soon.”
Except that Ennis won’t be there soon, not if fully unifying the sport’s four recognized welterweight titles remains his mission for 2025 and perhaps beyond. Hearn intends to revisit negotiations with Norman’s team, assuming Ennis defeats Chukhadzhian with expected ease in Saturday’s DAZN main event.
Shay Segev, DAZN’s chief executive officer, should explain why the streaming service decided to pay Ennis a purse in excess of $2 million for a complete mismatch he could’ve simply informed Hearn his company wouldn’t finance. DAZN subscribers deserve better main events than Ennis-Chukhadzhian 2 for a $225 annual subscription cost in the United States, particularly after charging those U.S. subscribers an additional $19.99 to view the British-centric Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol undercard last month from Riyadh.
Hearn realizes he has been tasked with selling something the boxing public doesn’t want. He called the event “a nightmare” financially because Matchroom stacked the undercard with unbeaten WBC super flyweight champ Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, former WBA featherweight champ Raymond Ford, light heavyweight contender Khalil Coe and rising junior welterweight prospect Ernesto “Tito” Mercado to account for an unmarketable main event.
“It was a really difficult decision,” Hearn told Uncrowned. “[Ennis] was really good about it. He was like, ‘Look, I know this is not really a fight that I want.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, maybe it’s time to move up to 154.’ He said, ‘Yeah, whatever you think is best strategy-wise, I’m up for. But my dream has always been to unify. I wanna win other belts.’ So, I was like, ‘F*ck!’
“We started to look at 154 and we looked at the likes of Bohachuk, you know, maybe even Madrimov, maybe even Vergil Ortiz. But I said to ‘Boots’ and I said to Bozy, ‘Be honest with me — are you tight at 147?’ And they’re like, ‘Not in the slightest.’ I always feel that you should move up when you can’t make the weight anymore, to perform at the highest level.”
Matchroom never made an offer to a 154-pound opponent because Ennis’ preference, temporarily at least, is to collect 147-pound championships. The crowd could still exceed 10,000 on Saturday night, an impressive number considering the nauseating nature of the main event.
Hearn also assured disappointed Ennis fans that they intend to return to Wells Fargo Center in February or March with a title unification fight against one of the aforementioned champions.
Stanionis likely must make his own mandatory defense next against another unbeaten contender Hearn’s company represents, Uzbekistan’s Shakhram Giyasov.
Norman, meanwhile, might prefer to reschedule his optional title defense against Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas now that the bruising to his right hand has subsided. Norman was supposed to face Cuevas on the Keyshawn Davis-Gustavo Lemos undercard Friday night at Scope Arena in Norfolk, Virginia, but he withdrew from what was supposed to be his first title defense in September.
That could leave Barrios or Ramos, who will meet on the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson undercard, as Ennis’ only option among the other welterweight titleholders. Depending on how that fight unfolds, Barrios or Ramos might consider February or March too quick of a turnaround to battle the exceptional Ennis.
If Ennis is therefore left to pursue a voluntary defense of his IBF belt, rather than landing a championship unification fight, it’ll reinforce what is already obvious — that he never should’ve embraced this embarrassing rematch with Chukhadzhian.
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