WHAT was once a potentially thrilling addition to a bumper February 22 card in Riyadh has turned into another social media argument.
This past week, it had been claimed that IBF welterweight champion Jaron Ennis, 33-0 (29 KOs), and WBC Interim super-welterweight belt holder Vergil Ortiz Jr, 22-0 (21 KOs), were all set for a showdown in the Middle East. Their bout was set to feature on a Riyadh Season event featuring Daniel Dubois vs. Joseph Parker, Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol and more. However, a battle between two of the best unbeaten talents in boxing looks to be on the shelf until important decisions are made.
Yesterday afternoon, writing on social media platform X, Ortiz dismissed any claims or narrative that the fight not taking place was down to him.
“I’ve always said I’ll fight anybody and I remained true to my word. Every single person that I have been offered to fight I said yes. It takes 2 to tango in boxing, so if I’m not in that ring fighting someone, know it’s not my fault! Time for some of you guys to stop saying I’m ducking and don’t wanna fight because that’s not the case this time and never was 💯”
Ortiz is close to a world title fight at 154lbs. (Image credit: Golden Boy Promotions)
A fighter doesn’t take a punch without throwing one back, though, and Ennis got his own verbal jab in a few hours later on Instagram.
“I seen the rumours on social media just like yall did as far as the fight with me and Virgil I was unaware that alleged negotiations was being made on my end From here on out if it didn’t come from ME and ME only don’t believe it & I will address if I’m staying at 47 or moving up to 54 at a later date and time.”
Eddie Hearn, promoter to Ennis, was in Birmingham last night and watched his flyweight star Galal Yafai all but secure a world title shot after retiring Sunny Edwards. Later in the evening, he spoke to Boxing News and said Ennis needs to choose whether he will stay at welterweight or move to super-welterweight.
“That fight’s not necessarily completely dead,” he said, “but Jaron’s got to make a fast decision about what weight he’s going to give and if he’ll vacate the belt and I’m not sure he’s going to do that. We’ll have to see what happens.”
Hearn shot down reports which said there had been a last minute change which would see Ennis moving from 147lbs to 154lbs.
“There was never a last minute change for it to be at 147,” he said.
“We received an offer about three days ago for the fight at 147. Not from us, not us trying to get the fight at 147. That is how it was written in the offer to us. We took it back to Jaron, obviously, that’s fine with us. We went back to them and said yes we’ll accept but are you sure this is at ’47. They went away, they came back and they said no we’ve spoke to Golden Boy sorry it would be at 154, you’ve got vacate your title. Okay, well this is a big decision. We’re going to have to go back. This was about 24-48 hours ago.
“On Thanksgiving we were asked to make a decision and the answer [from Ennis] was I just don’t know, I’m not ready to make a decision if I’m going to vacate my belt and that’s it and that’s all it is. So if we’ve got time to make a decision maybe he does it but if it’s to make a decision tonight or tomorrow I’m not sure he will. If he moves to ’54 he’ll 100% fight Vergil Ortiz, if he doesn’t he’ll unify at 147 and that’s over to him.”
Hearn also responded to Ennis’s post about being ‘unaware’ about negotiations taking place and gave an assurance that if the Philadelphian does move to 154lbs he will fight Ortiz Jr.
“There’s been no negotiations,” he confirmed. “All we did was receive an offer about three days ago. We received an offer to do the fight at ’47, we accepted, we went back, we checked, we were then told it was ’54. We said okay we’ve got to talk as a team to decide if we’re going to ’54 but what you’re not going to see is him go to ’54 and not fight Vergil Ortiz, I promise you that.”