Preliminary talks have begun for a fight between Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis and WBC interim junior middleweight champion Vergil Ortiz Jr. for a contest on February 22nd in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Ennis (33-0, 29 KOs) will move up from 147 to make his debut at 154 against the big-punching 26-year-old Golden Boy-promoted Oriz Jr. (22-0, 21 KOs) in a Riyadh Season event. The underway negotiations suggest that Boots Ennis’ promoter, Eddie Hearn of Matchiroom Boxing, has had a change of heart and is now on board with making this fight.
Deal In The Works
There had been talk that Hearn didn’t want to make the fight after Ennis’ lackluster showing in his title defense of his IBF welterweight belt against Karen Chukhadzhian last month on November 9th at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Although Ennis won the fight by a 12-round unanimous decision, he got hit a lot and did not look particularly good in victory.
“Per Golden Boy’s [president] Eric Gomez, preliminary talks have begun with Matchroom Boxing for Vergil Ortiz – Jaron Ennis at 154 on Feb. 22 Riyadh Season card,” said Dan Rafael on X.
It’s unclear if this is a one-off for Ennis fighting at 154 or if he’s decided to make the move up on a permanent basis. Staying at 147 will get Ennis nowhere because the champions want a lot of money to fight him in unification, and Hearn doesn’t appear to be interested in paying them what they’re asking for. Also, the other champions aren’t popular, and there’s little to gain from Ennis fighting them.
If Ennis stays at 154, he’ll have a lot of opportunities for important fights, especially if he keeps struggling like he did in his last fight against Karen Chukhadzhian. Fighting like that will have a stampede of contenders and champions wanting to fight Ennis because they’ll want to take advantage of his vulnerability and become the first person to beat him.
It’ll be a tough fight for Ennis, 27, to take in his debut at 154 because he’ll be going up against one of the best in the weight class immediately without getting his feet wet in the division first. However, this is how the old-school fighters moved up, and Ennis feels he’s that kind of a fighter.
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