Eddie Hearn: ‘Jaron Ennis must unify before facing Crawford at 154’

Promoter Eddie Hearn believes that his fighter Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis must look to unify titles in the welterweight division before moving up to junior middleweight to face Terence Crawford.

Ennis put on a dominant display in front of a sizeable crowd in Philadelphia, in his first fight with Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing. The fighter dismantled challenger David Avanesyan, forcing the Armenian’s corner to throw in the towel at the end of the fifth round. Ennis retained his IBF welterweight championship with the victory and is now eyeing a potential unification later this year. Crawford is the only other title holder in the division, but given his upcoming move to 154 lbs to face Israil Madrimov in August, the belts are likely to become vacant. Hearn believes Ennis must aim to unify before moving up to join Crawford one division farther north, and that his next fight could come as early as October on the huge Artur Beterbiev vs. Dimitry Bivol card in Saudi Arabia.

“The number one priority is to unify the division,” said Hearn. “He’s going to go to 154 at some point, but you don’t really want to go until you take care of business. His Excellency [Turki Alalshikh] asked me, ‘Do you think Boots would fight Crawford?’ I said, ‘Yeah’, but that’s for next year, we are going to fight in October or November. I said to His Excellency, ‘Maybe if you want, we will go co-main event on Beterbiev vs Bivol in October.’ Or we could come back here… Crawford vs. Boots at the Ball Park, fuck me, that has got me really excited.”

The encounter between Ennis and Avanesyan attracted an official crowd of 14,199, the largest for a fight in Philadelphia since 14,930 saw Marvin Hagler outpoint Bennie Briscoe in 1978. Fans were reportedly still lining up at the box office for tickets while the two fighters walked to the ring. The event surpassed even promoter Hearn’s expectations and he believes that the experience in a packed arena will be good preparation for a fight against the big names in the sport.

“A trainer is only as good as his fighter, but a promoter is only as good as his fighter,” Hearn said. “The reality is you need quality fighters. You need a big TV deal, and you need great fighters. What we saw tonight, I’d love to take all the credit, and Boots [Ennis] would, but no one anticipated that. Honestly, they were queueing on his ring walk out there tonight –  it was unbelievable. We’ve done homecomings and it isn’t easy. I know he thought his timing was off, but it’s hard, in a fight you’ve got to be really zoned in. That was a really good experience for him tonight because next time he’s in front of a crowd like that it will be a much bigger test.”