Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis has a decision he needs to make on whether to stay at 147 to continue his dream of becoming the undisputed welterweight champion or move up to 154 to broaden his horizons against the more popular but more dangerous fighters in that division.
Boots (32-0, 29 KOs) needs to keep his eyes open and understand that he may have just as many problems trying to get fights that will help his career at 154 as he did at 147.
Hearn’s Reluctance to Invest
Ennis’ promoter, Eddie Hearn, has shown twice now that he’s not willing to invest money to get him the fights that would help him become a star at welterweight.
This isn’t the UK, where you can take a fighter and match them against lower-level fighters to transform them into a PPV attraction. Hearn didn’t have to lift a finger to make Anthony Joshua a massive UK star.
All Hearn did was match Joshua against lesser fighters and then put him in with 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko to make him a superstar in Britain. That approach doesn’t work for the U.S. Promoters actually have to invest in their fighters, repeatedly matching them against good opposition to turn them into stars.
They can’t find an over-the-hill 41-year-old former world champion and match a young hopeful against them to transform them into a PPV attraction. That won’t work in the U.S, where fans expect quality fights, and they know when a fighter is being protected.
Hearn’s decision not to increase the $1.7 million offer to WBO 147-lb champion Brian Norman Jr. foiled an opportunity for Ennis to get that fight, which would have helped his career. Tim Bradley said that Boots should have chipped in his own money to sweeten the deal to the $2.2 million that Norman Jr. was asking for.
But why should Ennis use his money when he has Hearn? He signed him, talking about how he would turn Boots into a star. But he’s not going to make that happen if he’s failing to negotiate important unification fights against Norman Jr. and losing purse bids in the same week.
WBA champion Eimanis Stanionis wasn’t interested in fighting Ennis either for the money offered.
On top of all that, Hearn lost the purse for Boots Ennis’ IBF mandatory defense against Karen Chukhadzhian. Hearn says he still wants Boots to keep his IBF title, but it now means he’ll have to fight wherever Karen’s promoters pick. Losing a purse bid was a clincher in the eyes of fans that Hearn isn’t interested in putting money into Ennis’ career to get him the fights he needs.
A source told Thaboxingvoice that Hearn made a six-figure offer to 154-lb contender Charles Conwell for a fight against Boots. That fight likely won’t happen either because Conwell would want to be paid well to take on the highly hyped Ennis.
If Boots moves up to 154, there’s no way of knowing whether he’ll do well in that division. Those fighters punch harder than Boots and have enough talent to beat him. He gets hit with everything, and if he has to depend on his chin to win fights at 154, it might fail him sooner or later.
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