Vergil Ortiz Jr. and Jaron Ennis arriving at opposite ends of the opportunity spectrum

They were born nine months apart, they turned pro three months apart, and they climbed the ranks simultaneously such that, as the 2010s gave way to the 2020s, these were indisputably the two most promising prospects in the welterweight division.

Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Vergil Ortiz, Jr. were like a poor man’s pugilistic Bird and Magic, two mega-talents arriving on the same stage at the same time, leaving fans to debate which of them truly represented the future of their sport.

Their parallel paths have continued in certain senses: They’ve both snagged alphabet titles, they’ve both remained undefeated, they’ve both rarely been taken the distance, and they’ve both become ticketsellers.

But now their paths are poised to diverge wildly. As the summer of 2024 winds down, no rising star has more options and opportunity available to him than Ortiz, and no rising star is staring at a more depressing wasteland devoid of options and opportunity than Ennis.

It wasn’t easy, but Ortiz passed the toughest test of his career Saturday in Las Vegas against Serhii Bohachuk (more on that narrow escape in a bit), and in so doing cleared the path to play the role of reality-TV bachelor picking among a field of eager beauties. 

The man whose checkbook is currently propping up the sport, Turki Alalshikh, wants to make a fight between Ortiz and Terence Crawford. Alalshikh already proved willing to pay for Ortiz vs. Tim Tszyu had the latter’s scalp laceration been more cooperative. And Ortiz specifically called out the winner of a tentatively planned Sebastian Fundora vs. Errol Spence fight, the latter of which would match two Dallas-area fighters in a bout that could sell out Jerry Jones’ 80,000-seat playground.

By all appearances, it will be up to Ortiz to choose the lucrative, promotable, competitive showdown that most appeals to him. And then to potentially get around to the others soon after. Not bad for a guy who, due to rhabdomyolysis flare-ups, didn’t box in 2023 and, it was feared, might never compete again.

Ortiz is in the right weight class at the right time and apparently presents the right risk-reward ratio in the eyes of all the junior middleweights who matter.

Ennis, on the other hand, is in the wrong weight class at the wrong time and is apparently all wrong for everyone within seven pounds in either direction.

Welterweight has historically been boxing’s most talent-laden division. A year ago, Crawford and Spence were dueling for supremacy at 147 and it was a glamour division, just as it had been during the Manny Pacquiao years and the Floyd Mayweather years and the Shane Mosley years and the Oscar De La Hoya years and the Pernell Whitaker years and the Donald Curry years and, of course, the Sugar Ray Leonard years. 

But now? Bupkis. Crawford vacated the premises, leaving behind Boots — the clear No. 1 in the weight class despite not having proven a whole hell of a lot — Eimantis Stanionis, Mario Barrios, and … that’s about it for welterweights who could pull in any kind of audience headlining a televised card in the U.S.

Ennis rolled up a few years ago like the John Travolta Saturday Night Fever dancing GIF and has turned into the Travolta Pulp Fiction alone and confused GIF.

He could move up to 154 — and assuredly will eventually — but none of the stars there have given any indication they’d make time for Ennis if he did invade their turf. He could take a page out of the Marvelous Marvin Hagler playbook and wait for the smaller star fighters to come up from 135 and 140 to fight him at 147, but like the 154-pounders, Teofimo Lopez, Devin Haney, Ryan Garcia, and Gervonta “Tank” Davis haven’t made public any intention of challenging Boots.

Ennis is 32-0 with 29 KOs and hasn’t faced a single opponent yet as respected as the man Ortiz just beat, Bohachuk. And it sure looks like the only part of that statement that will change in the next year or two is his record.

The only star fighter in boxing right now with fewer attractive options than Ennis is Claressa Shields, who has cleaned out every division from 154 to 175 and has to look to MMA to find a challenge. Ennis is better off than she is; at least he theoretically has appealing opponents one weight class to the north or south.

As boxing fans, our hope is that sometime soon — at least before his 20s are over — Ennis can land some kind of fight that forces him to dig deep the way Bohachuk did Ortiz. Whatever you may think of the 26-year-old Ortiz and his overall showing at Mandalay Bay against his Ukrainian opponent, it’s impossible not to respect his finishing kick.

Ortiz had never had to hear scorecards before. He’d never been past the ninth round. In the previous two years, he hadn’t been taken to the end of the first round.

So there was every reason to be skeptical about how he’d fare if Bohachuk could extend him. And, informed (correctly, as it turned out) by his trainer Robert Garcia that he may need to sweep the last three rounds to win the fight, Ortiz did just that. He won rounds 10, 11, and 12 decisively to capture a majority decision that would have been a majority draw if he’d lost one of those final three stanzas. And he did it with a mix of disciplined jabbing, footwork, selective aggression, and intent to slug when slugged upon.

The late stages of the fight told us what Ortiz is made of. He faced questions every boxer has to answer at some point. Crawford just encountered similar interrogation a week earlier against Israil Madrimov and powered through the last two rounds to stay undefeated. Even Floyd Mayweather found himself roughly even with two or three rounds to go a few times — against Jose Luis Castillo, Oscar De La Hoya, and, depending on your scoring, maybe Miguel Cotto and Marcos Maidana — and always managed to hang onto his zero.

This is what everyone wants to see for Ennis — including Boots himself, probably. He will hardly be satisfied if he goes much longer with his toughest tests being “that time Roiman Villa won a round against him” and “that time David Avanesyan landed like four or five clean punches on him.”

We’re not going to get greedy and ask to see him climb off the canvas twice like Ortiz did on Saturday. Although, calling it straight, it’s difficult to suffer two knockdowns less emphatically and rise from them less dramatically than Ortiz did against Bohachuk.

The first one, in the opening round, was notable only for referee Harvey Dock’s missed call and for the proper (if perplexingly delayed) use of replay. Ortiz’s glove touched down after an equilibrium shot, Dock missed it in real time, and three rounds later, the call was reversed and scorecards adjusted. It turned what seemed like a 10-9 round for Ortiz into a 10-8 for Bohachuk, and though you could make the case for only a 10-9 Bohachuk round, it would be a flimsy one; the knockdown was clean (if not at all destructive) and the round otherwise was close.

The second knockdown, in the eighth round, was a different story. Bohachuk landed a left hook and as Ortiz swung back in retaliation, the Texan’s foot slipped out from under him on the logo in the center of the ring. It was ruled a knockdown (I suspect Dock was erring on the side of calling a knockdown just to avoid potentially repeating his earlier mistake), and Ortiz rebounded to rock Bohachuk and dominate the rest of the round.

This was, to me, as obvious a 10-9 knockdown round as you’ll see. When the knockdown itself is disputable and the floored fighter comprehensively wins the portion of the round he doesn’t spend taking an 8-count, it’s plainly unfair to create a three-point swing (from 10-9 to 8-10) due to a judgment call by the referee. It’s frankly unfair even to swing two points, from 10-9 to 9-10, because a knockdown was called, but the rules say you have to acknowledge the referee’s decision. So, 10-9 Bohachuk becomes the less unfair of the two options afforded under boxing’s rules.

Unfortunately, none of the official judges saw fit to stray from the rigid, standard application, so Ortiz was, with two 10-8 rounds against him, behind on two cards and even on the third with just four rounds to go.

I ended up with Ortiz winning 115-112 — 8 rounds to 4 with just one 10-8 round — but for narrative and dramatic purposes, I’m glad the judges had it the way they did. The notion that Ortiz was trailing across the board through nine rounds and rallied to win is the sort of story we can repeat throughout his career. His victory over Bohachuk is the most meaningful result on his resume, will be part of the Fight of the Year conversation in four months, and, should he end up on a Hall of Fame trajectory, will enhance his legend in ways a more ordinary close win, achieved without getting up from two knockdowns and without coming from behind, doesn’t.

I hope Boots Ennis gets a chance to add a thrilling chapter like that to his story — or hits the deck and doesn’t get up, or falls behind and doesn’t charge back, so we know. Maybe a fight with someone like Stanionis would pull something out of him. But my suspicion is that we won’t see the Philadelphian pushed to the brink until he fights a Crawford or a Tszyu or a Spence.

And for the moment, those guys all seem eager to fight just one of the two former side-by-side welterweight mega-prospects. And it isn’t Boots.

If Ennis can’t get Crawford, Tszyu, or the Spence-Fundora winner in the ring, there is one other option, of course, to find out what he’s made of.

Vergil Ortiz is lined up to enjoy all the opportunities Boots Ennis craves. Maybe in a year or two, Ortiz can be the opportunity Ennis has been waiting for.

Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, Ringside Seat, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X or LinkedIn, or via email at [email protected].