Promoter Eddie Hearn is confident that he can put a unification fight together for Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis and one of the other champions at 147 in the first quarter of 2025.
Boots (32-0, 29 KOs) has a title defense of his IBF welterweight belt against his mandatory Karen Chukhadzhian on November 9th in Philadelphia. After that fight, Ennis’ next contest will be to fight one of the champions.
“We’re running a business,” said Eddie Hearn to Fight Hub TV when asked about why he lost the purse bid for Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis’ fight against Karen Chukhadzhian. “At the number we bid, we were already making a huge investment in that fight. Also, he [Boots] has minimums.
“People don’t understand purse bids. A fighter has a minimum in his contract, and sometimes the bid is less than the minimum because you don’t want to overpay the opponent, and Chukhadzhian is already getting overpaid,” said Hearn.
This time, Boots Ennis was lucky that Hearn was able to make a deal with Chukhadzhian’s management so that they could agree to fight in Philadelphia. But if Hearn keeps losing purse bids for Boots Ennis’ fights, he’s going to wind up fighting all around the world, and eventually, that could lead to him losing. Visiting fighters often find it difficult to win decisions against hometown guys. Hearn needs to do a better job of winning the purse bids for Boots.
“So, we sat with Jaron and said, ‘Look, this is the number we’re comfortable with bidding,” said Hearn. “Financially, it’s already a disaster for us, but we’re going to back it. Let’s try and get this fight done. His promoters came in with this crazy bid.
“Now, whether they could have done it or not, I reached out to them and said, ‘Look, what do you want to do? Where do you want to do this fight? Do you want to do it? Do you have the facilities for that, or do you want to work together and do it with us?’ And we cut a deal to do it together,” said Hearn.
If Boots had ended up fighting Karen in Germany or Ukraine, that would have been interesting. Hearn would have been criticized big time by fans, especially if Boots lost.
“The reason we decided to do this fight is because I had a very frank and honest conversation with Jaron Ennis, who told me, ‘My dream in boxing is to unify the division and win multiple belts in the division.’ He’s going to do that at 154, and he’s going to do that at 160,” said Hearn.
If Boots isn’t confident that he can win at 154, he should stay where he’s at, fighting the no name guys at 147, and hope that when he gets Crawford’s age at 37, he’ll become a star. It took until his 15th year as a professional to become popular because he was fighting opposition that casual fans had never heard of.
“I asked him and Bozy a simple question. ‘Do you need to move to 154 physically? How do you make the weight?’ And they said, ‘So easy.’ I’m like, ‘Then we need to unify.’ ‘Well, but this fight.’ ‘I know, but sometimes you need to get things done,” said Hearn.”We’re going to build a massive card around it [Karen Chukhadzhian fight]. People are going to understand the journey.”
Boots can probably stay at welterweight for years, but that doesn’t mean he should. His career would take off much faster if he moved up to 154 now and started fighting guys like Vergil Ortiz, Tim Tszyu, Serhii Bohachuk, and Israil Madrimov.
There’s no point in Boots staying at 147 if Hearn can’t come up with the money to pay the other champions what they want. If $1.7 million is Hearn’s sticking point, he’s never going to get the three champions at welterweight to agree to fight Boots. They know that their chances of winning are slim. So, of course, they’re going to ask for a lot of money because they’re better off keeping their world titles unless they’re paid a lot.
“‘We got to deal with this guy, and then we’re going to unify.’ When I looked at the other champions. If it was Crawford and if it was Spence and all these other champions. I’m thinking, ‘They’re just not going to fight him,’ but it’s not. It’s Barrios. It’s Norman. It’s Stanionis,’” said Hearn.
“Boots is the biggest fight for all of those guys. Sooner or later, one of those guys are going to realize they need to take the fight. They’re the ones that are going to get paid, and I am confident that we can make that unification in the first quarter of 2025,” said Hearn.
For Hearn to be confident of making a unification, it must mean he’s willing to pay big money because he’s not going to get any of the champs to agree to fight Boots without paying top dollar. WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr. wanted $2.2 million to fight Boots, but Hearn wouldn’t go beyond $1.7 million.
“So, I made the decision to pay up. I made the decision to double down on the card. To bring Bam in. To put Ray Ford in a really good fight. To put Khalil Coe on. It’s a brilliant card. Sometimes, you have to wipe your mouth and go, ‘It is what it is. Let’s get on with it. Let’s get this fight won, and we must try and unify in 2025.
“Then once we do that, we go again and try and unify again and try and become undisputed. But at least once before we make the move to 154.
“I believe when Jaron wins in November and unifies the division, it’ll be very difficult for Terence to avoid that fight unless he’s retired from the sport because Boots is going to get bigger and bigger. Once he unifies, there’s going to be real momentum for that fight, but it may take His Excellency to put the money up for Crawford to say, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’”
Hearn isn’t considering the time required for Ennis to complete his goal of becoming the undisputed champion at welterweight. Without the Matchroom boss willing to offer crazy money to the three champions at 147, it could take Boots two or more years to accomplish his goal.
By then, Crawford will either be retired or beaten by one or more of the 154-lb fighters. He’s already showing age and was fortunate to win his debut at junior middleweight against Israil Madrimov.
“They’re not going to want to do it. No one really wants to fight Boots, let’s be honest,” said Hearn.
Of course, the welterweight champions aren’t going to want to fight Boots. Again, without Hearn throwing crazy money at them, they and their promoters aren’t going to want anything to do with Ennis. It’s the same thing with Hearn and his other fighters.
He wasn’t throwing vulnerable guys like Edgar Berlanga in with fighters he couldn’t beat before matching him against Canelo Alvarez to get the mega-bucks. He wasn’t going to take chances with berlanga. It’s the same with other fighters not wanting to face Boots Ennis. They won’t do it unless Hearn digs deep and pays whatever their asking price is.
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