Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis was in no mood to give challenger Karen Chukhadzhian credit for his outstanding performance in their rematch on Saturday night at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Boots (33-0, 29 KOs) held onto his IBF welterweight title, winning a 12-round unanimous decision, but Chukhadzhian (24-3, 13 KOs) deserved credit instead of being called a “bottom-tier” fighter by him in the post-fight interview.
The scores:
– 119-107
– 117-109
– 116-110
Ennis and Bozy Panicked
Chukhadzhian’s powerful shots and his skills had Ennis and his trainer/father, Derek ‘Bozy’ Ennis, panicking by the seventh round. Bozy kept barking the same instruction, telling him to get the knockout. He made it sound like Boots could just casually go out and score a knockout at any time when the reality was he was drowning. There were no real instructions from Bozy. He was just telling Ennis to go for the knockout and sounded like a mess.
Boots looked embarrassed during and after the fight, as the fans weren’t cheering him, and there were scattered boos for how bad he’d performed. Rather than taking the high road and giving Chukhadzhian credit for outboxing him through most of the fight, Ennis said he’d not performed well because he wasn’t motivated.
Ennis scored a fifth-round knockdown when he landed a series of hard shots after catching Chukhadzhian with a powerful left. He didn’t appear hurt but went down because Ennis was crowding him and throwing nonstop punches. Chukhadzhian couldn’t escape the pressure. In the tenth, the referee took a point away from Chukhadzhian for holding.
The referee should have penalized Boots for the low blows he was hitting Karen with all during the fight, because those were far worse than the holding that was going on.
Boots Struggles against “Bottom-Tier Fighter”
Chris Mannix: “Your offense is still among the best in the welterweight division, if not the best, but for the second straight fight, we saw you get hit more often than what we’ve seen in the past. What do you need to do defensively to get better for these big fights,” said Chris Mannix of DAZN to Jaron Ennis after his win over Karen Chukhadzhian.
Jaron Ennis: “Just fight the bigger names. Sometimes when you fight bottom-tier guys, you don’t get up for them,” said Ennis. “I know if I fight a way better guy. I’m going to be crazy. I’m going to be on point. That’s what’s going to make me better. I need these top guys.”
Mannix: “I was going to ask you about unifying these titles, but it sounds like your ready to get out of 147.”
Ennis: “If we can get one of these guys, let’s make it happen. If not, 154, here I come.”
Eddie Hearn: “I thought it was a great performance from Chukhadzhian. They said they were going to give us a performance this time, and they did it. Boots isn’t always switched on like he would be against a fighter that he had a fear factor against. I noticed this week, that he was much tighter [translation: struggling to make weight] than normal at 147.”
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