Jaron 'Boots' Ennis deserves blame for embracing embarrassing Karen Chukhadzhian rematch
Jaron Ennis entered a Boys & Girls Club in his hometown of Philadelphia on Wednesday night to visit impressionable children looking to be inspired by the unbeaten IBF welterweight champion.
Those kids could learn a lot from how the understated, respectful Ennis goes about his business. A humble, hardworking grinder from a boxing family, the talented Ennis has patiently plodded through promotional and platform issues and ascended slowly but surely to the cusp of cracking the top 10 of pound-for-pound lists.
Ennis, who answers to the nickname âBoots,â is unlike most contemporaries. The explosive offensive fighter prefers to let his considerable abilities talk for him, rather than taking to social media to call out potential opponents he knows wonât accept his challenges.
Three nights after lending his time to this charitable cause, however, Ennis is figuratively requesting charitable donations from knowledgeable Philadelphia fight fans who know mismatches when they're pitched to them.
The IBF is mostly to blame for ordering its 147-pound champion to partake in an utterly unnecessary mandated rematch against Ukraineâs Karen Chukhadzhian on Saturday night at Wells Fargo Center. Ennis (32-0, 29 KOs, 1 NC) still shouldnât be absolved from blame for embracing what figures to be another relatively easy encounter with Chukhadzhian (24-2, 13 KOs), who lost every round on all three scorecards â 120-107 apiece â when he first faced Ennis in January 2023 in Washington, D.C.
Ennis won the then-vacant IBF interim welterweight title the night he shut out Chukhadzhian on the Gervonta Davis vs. Hector Luis Garcia undercard. He was elevated to permanent champion when Terence Crawford moved up to the junior middleweight division following his ninth-round stoppage of Errol Spence Jr. in their long-awaited title unification fight 15 months ago in Las Vegas.
In Ennisâ defense, he wants to fight Crawford to prove he is boxingâs best welterweight. Crawford, 37, has publicly acknowledged that he wants to face higher-reward opponents than Ennis, namely undisputed super middleweight champion Saul âCaneloâ Alvarez.
Ennisâ issue, as it relates to fighting Chukhadzhian again, is that he still wants to become boxingâs fully unified welterweight champion.
âI want to be undisputed,â Ennis told Uncrowned. âItâs very important. I wanna be undisputed in multiple weight classes, so I gotta start at â47. Itâs gonna be â47, â54, â60 and â68. Iâm trying to be undisputed in all four weight divisions, so itâs very important to my legacy.â
The 27-year-old Ennis needs to beat the Nov. 15 winner between WBC champ Mario Barrios vs. Abel Ramos, plus WBO champ Brian Norman and WBA champ Eimantas Stanionis to accomplish something Crawford did last summer.
In this diminished division, though, matching Crawfordâs feat wonât enhance Ennisâ legacy the way it did for Crawford, one of the sportâs pound-for-pound kings. Crawford, a three-weight world champion from Omaha, Nebraska, dropped the previously unbeaten Spence three times on his way to adding the IBF, WBA and WBC crowns to his WBO belt.
Beating Barrios or Ramos, Norman and Stanionis would take Ennis another year or more to accomplish if he were to win those bouts. Taking that path would essentially waste another 12 to 18 months of Ennisâ physical prime, some of which has already been squandered while Ennis fought mostly ordinary opposition on Showtime while his late promoter, Cameron Dunkin, understandably protected his investment as Ennis appeared on cards arranged by Al Haymonâs Premier Boxing Champions.
Ennis signed with Eddie Hearnâs Matchroom Boxing in May once he and his father/manager, Derek âBozyâ Ennis, couldnât come to an agreement to stay aligned with PBC and its new content partner, Amazon Prime Video. Hearn wisely brought Ennis to Philadelphia for his Matchroom debut, a five-round stoppage of Russian contender David Avanesyan on July 13.
That card drew a paid crowd of 14,119 to Wells Fargo Center, home of the NBAâs Sixers and NHLâs Flyers, and generated nearly $1.2 million in ticket revenue. There hadnât been a crowd that large for boxing indoors in Philadelphia since late middleweight great Marvin Hagler defeated Philadelphiaâs Bennie Briscoe by unanimous decision at the since-demolished Spectrum in August 1978.
They tried to return almost four months later with a title unification fight against Norman â a hard-hitting, fan-friendly, undefeated fighter from Conyers, Georgia â just outside of Atlanta. But negotiations fell apart over approximately $250,000, which left Ennis to either handle his mandatory obligation with Chukhadzhian or vacate his championship to move up to the 154-pound division.
Ennis âgave it some thought,â but he ultimately determined he should remain at welterweight for a fight no one outside of Chukhadzhianâs family and team could conceivably think is a constructive use of anyoneâs time. The IBF inexplicably ordered Ennis-Chukhadzhian II because Chukhadzhian defeated another undeserving contender, Italyâs Pietro Rossetti, in an ill-conceived October 2023 elimination match, less than 10 months after Chukhadzhian was completely outclassed by Ennis.
Apparently, Chukhadzhianâs second-round stoppage of Venezuelaâs Michel Marcano in his first fight after losing to Ennis warranted an eliminator to reposition him for a second shot at Ennis. Again, the IBFâs bizarre justification for Chukhadzhianâs advancement is more to blame than anything for this embarrassing rematch taking place Saturday night.
Ennis nonetheless couldâve taken a stand against strange sanctioning mandates and better serviced his fan base â and strengthened his reputation â more than wins over Norman, Stanionis and Barrios or Ramos might do. Though it is audacious to tell a fighter who has worked hard and taken physical risks his whole life to give up a championship belt he cherishes, it is time Ennis starts attempting to realize his vast potential.
Moving up to 154 pounds, rather than dominating the overmatched Chukhadzhian again, wouldâve enabled him to start that arduous process. Ennis admitted the most appealing options for him to compete within the 154-pound division are most notably Crawford â if Crawford were to change his mind â rival Vergil Ortiz Jr., the winner between Sebastian Fundora and Spence, Jermell Charlo, and the winner of the Serhii Bohachuk vs. Israil Madrimov match Dec. 21 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
âI ainât gonna lie â 154 [is] popping,â Ennis said. âEverybody at 154 right now. Every fight at 154 is eye-catching for me. Everybody at 154 can fight. I feel like whoever I fight at 154, itâs gonna be a great name regardless. Like I said, 154 [is] popping right now. So, like I said, I would love to come to 154. But let me handle business at 147. Iâll be there soon.â
Except that Ennis wonât be there soon, not if fully unifying the sportâs four recognized welterweight titles remains his mission for 2025 and perhaps beyond. Hearn intends to revisit negotiations with Normanâs team, assuming Ennis defeats Chukhadzhian with expected ease in Saturday's DAZN main event.
Shay Segev, DAZNâs chief executive officer, should explain why the streaming service decided to pay Ennis a purse in excess of $2 million for a complete mismatch he couldâve simply informed Hearn his company wouldnât finance. DAZN subscribers deserve better main events than Ennis-Chukhadzhian 2 for a $225 annual subscription cost in the United States, particularly after charging those U.S. subscribers an additional $19.99 to view the British-centric Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol undercard last month from Riyadh.
Hearn realizes he has been tasked with selling something the boxing public doesnât want. He called the event âa nightmareâ financially because Matchroom stacked the undercard with unbeaten WBC super flyweight champ Jesse âBamâ Rodriguez, former WBA featherweight champ Raymond Ford, light heavyweight contender Khalil Coe and rising junior welterweight prospect Ernesto âTitoâ Mercado to account for an unmarketable main event.
âIt was a really difficult decision,â Hearn told Uncrowned. â[Ennis] was really good about it. He was like, âLook, I know this is not really a fight that I want.â And Iâm like, âWell, maybe itâs time to move up to 154.â He said, âYeah, whatever you think is best strategy-wise, Iâm up for. But my dream has always been to unify. I wanna win other belts.â So, I was like, âF**k!â
âWe started to look at 154 and we looked at the likes of Bohachuk, you know, maybe even Madrimov, maybe even Vergil Ortiz. But I said to Boots and I said to Bozy, âBe honest with me â are you tight at 147?â And theyâre like, âNot in the slightest.â I always feel that you should move up when you canât make the weight anymore, to perform at the highest level.â
Matchroom never made an offer to a 154-pound opponent because Ennisâ preference, temporarily at least, is to collect 147-pound championships. The crowd could still exceed 10,000 on Saturday night, an impressive number considering the nauseating nature of the main event.
Hearn also assured disappointed Ennis fans that they intend to return to Wells Fargo Center in February or March with a title unification fight against one of the aforementioned champions.
Stanionis likely must make his own mandatory defense next against another unbeaten contender Hearnâs company represents, Uzbekistanâs Shakhram Giyasov.
Norman, meanwhile, might prefer to reschedule his optional title defense against Puerto Ricoâs Derrieck Cuevas now that the bruising to his right hand has subsided. Norman was supposed to face Cuevas on the Keyshawn Davis-Gustavo Lemos undercard Friday night at Scope Arena in Norfolk, Virginia, but he withdrew from what was supposed to be his first title defense in September.
That could leave Barrios or Ramos, who will meet on the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson undercard, as Ennisâ only option among the other welterweight titleholders. Depending on how that fight unfolds, Barrios or Ramos might consider February or March too quick of a turnaround to battle the exceptional Ennis.
If Ennis is therefore left to pursue a voluntary defense of his IBF belt, rather than landing a championship unification fight, itâll reinforce what is already obvious â that he never shouldâve embraced this embarrassing rematch with Chukhadzhian.