Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis defends his IBF welterweights title against his mandatory Karen Chukhadzhian in a rematch this Saturday, November 9th. In the other big fight on the card, WBC super flyweight champion Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez fights Pedro Guevara. The event will be shown live on DAZN starting at 7:00 p.m. ET.
Neither of these fights is attractive to the fans, who see them as mismatches. In Boots’ case, he has no choice because Chukhadzhian is his IBF mandatory fight. Including Bam Rodriguez on this card was a good idea, but it might not be enough for it to pull in big ratings on DAZN.
What was really needed was Terence Crawford as Boots Ennis’ opponent because many fans are interested in seeing that fight.
Undercard
– Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez vs. Pedro Guevara
– Raymond Ford vs. Orlando Gonzalez
– Khalil Coe vs. Manuel Gallegos
– Ernesto Mercado vs. Jesus Saracho
– Austin Williams vs. Gian Garrido
Ennis (32-0, 29 KOs) will fight in front of his hometown fans at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Being at home puts a lot of pressure on the 27-year-old Boots Ennis’ shoulders because he’s got to look good against a fighter he struggled against last year on January 7th. Ennis won by the scores 120-108, 120-108, and 120-108.
Chukhadzhian (24-2, 13 KOs) lost every round to Ennis in a 12-round unanimous decision defeat, but he made him look bad by using movement and annoying shots thrown with little power.
“I’ve been watching Jaron Ennis for five years. This kid is unbeatable in my opinion,” said Eddie Hearn to Matchroom Boxing. “Speed, power, movement, defense, temperament, work ethic, and he will rule the division at 147 and many divisions beyond.”
What makes it tougher for Ennis is that this is his second fight with Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn, and he didn’t look good in his debut with the company earlier this year against David Avanesyan on July 13th.
Hearn’s expectations for Boots Ennis don’t seem to jibe with reality. He speaks about Ennis as if he’s infallible, but his performances against Roiman Villa, David Avanesyan, and Chukhadzhian showed that he is beatable. That might be one of the reasons why Ennis has chosen to stall his career out at 147 with his unattainable goal of becoming an undisputed champion.
It would be possible if Hearn were willing to invest the money in Boots’ career to get the other champions to agree to fight him. He’s not done that. We may see Ennis stultified at 147 and unable to move forward because his promoter is not coming up with the dough to get the champions to fight him.
“The plan is to collect these belts and be undisputed at 147 and do the same thing at 154,” said Ennis.”The champions don’t want to fight me. It’s out of my hands. I did my best. I feel like they’re lacking confidence. They don’t believe in themselves. They know what’s in front of them. A different type of mindset, a different type of beast.”
When Ennis talks, he sounds naive and does not understand his bleak situation. Of course, what we don’t know is whether Ennis is intentionally using his goal of collecting the belts as an excuse to stay in the dead 147-lb division and avoid the killer sharks at 154 that would devour him whole. They would potentially end Ennis’ career as a top-level fighter by beating him if he moved up to 154.
So, instead of going up, Ennis repeatedly says that he’s staying at 147 to accomplish his goal of becoming an undisputed champion. He sounds like a broken record when he talks about this subject, but this may be just a foxhole for Ennis to hide in to keep from getting beaten.
“Everybody keeps asking me about Bud. That’s the only fight that everyone wants to see,” said Ennis about Crawford. “I’m trying, I tried. I wanted it to happen. It’s always going to be ‘Yes’ on my end. It’s up to them if it’s going to be ‘Yes’ on their end.”
Boots can’t be serious about wanting to fight Crawford because if he were, he’d have already moved up to 154 to increase his chances of that fight happening.
“Obviously, they don’t want the fight. I’m focused on what I’ve got going on right now. When I fought Chukhadzhian, my whole mindset was, ‘knockout.’ You can’t go into no fight like that. When you have your fun, the stoppage is going to come,” said Ennis, giving his philosophy, which he’s said in numerous interviews.
Former WBA featherweight champion Raymond Ford (15-1-1, 8 KOs) will be fighting for the first time since losing his title to Nick Ball by a 12-round split decision earlier this year on June 1st in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We’ll see if the loss to Ball has affected Ford.
Orlando Gonzalez (23-2, 13 KOs) will be looking to send Ford down to his second consecutive defeat on Saturday. This is not the ideal opponent for Ford to come back against.
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