By Keith Idec
PHILADELPHIA – Eddie Hearn realizes Jaron Ennis must be better in every way than he was Saturday night if he is to beat Vergil Ortiz Jr.
The unbeaten IBF welterweight champion would need to train harder and fight smarter if Ennis agrees to oppose Ortiz next in what would be an intriguing junior middleweight match. Ennis’ promoter remains confident, however, that the fighter nicknamed “Boots” is more than capable of defeating Ortiz, a knockout artist who owns the WBC interim super welterweight title.
Now that Ennis (33-0, 29 KOs, 1 NC) has made a mandated title defence against Ukraine’s Karen Chukhadzhian (24-3, 13 KOs), Hearn expects Saudi Arabian fight financier Turki Alalshikh to make a lucrative offer for Ennis to move up seven pounds for a fight with Ortiz, which would take place in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. It’ll be up to Ennis and his father/trainer/manager, Derek “Bozy” Ennis, to decide whether to accept that higher-profile fight or continue chasing welterweight title unification bouts.
“It depends on the financial package, depends on what we wanna do long term, depends if we don’t wanna return to 147,” Hearn stated during Ennis’ post-fight press conference. “You know, the reason that we fought Chukhadzhian tonight was because Boots had a desire to capture the other championships at 147. So, we gotta review that position, we’ve gotta look at the option against Vergil Ortiz, we gotta look at the financial package for that fight as well.
“Because, as well, don’t forget, you know, a win over someone like Vergil Ortiz, on a Riyadh Season card, is gonna take his profile to another level. So, it’s gonna be very tempting. And, by the way, it’s a brilliant fight, a brilliant fight. I mean, Boots against Vergil Ortiz is one of the best fights out there to be made, not just in the division, but in boxing – two tremendous young fighters.”
It is still important to Ennis to become boxing’s second undisputed welterweight champion of the four-belt era. Attaining that goal would require him to beat WBO champ Brian Norman (26-0, 20 KOs), WBA champ Eimantas Stanionis (15-0, 9 KOs, 1 NC) and the winner between WBC champ Mario Barrios (29-2, 18 KOs) and Abel Ramos (28-6-2, 22 KOs) on the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson undercard at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Ennis is also open, according to his post-fight comments Saturday night, to moving up to box Ortiz (22-0, 21 KOs), of Grand Prairie, Texas.
“Like I always say, I wanna fight the best,” Ennis said. “I don’t try to fight easy, no bottom-tier guys. You know, when you fight the best, you gonna be better.”
Philadelphia’s Ennis wasn’t better in his rematch with Chukhadzhian than he was when he shut out Chukhadzhian on all three scorecards, 120-108 apiece, in January 2023 on the Gervonta Davis-Hector Luis Garcia undercard at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. A more aggressive Chukhadzhian hit him much more during their second 12-rounder, during which Ennis performed sloppily and didn’t defend himself well while pressing for a knockout at times in a main event DAZN streamed from Wells Fargo Center.
Ennis nonetheless won comfortably, according to judges Dave Braslow (119-107), Eric Marlinski (117-109) and Steve Weisfeld (116-110), who respectively scored 11, nine and eight rounds for the heavily favoured champion. Hearn envisions a more motivated, sharper Ennis if he were to battle Barrios, Ramos, Norman, Stanionis or Ortiz.
“Against Barrios, against Stanionis, against Norman, it’s gonna be different,” Hearn said. “And against Ortiz it’s gonna be different. And the performance has got to be different, because he knows and Bozy knows that performance might not be good enough to beat one of those guys. But it will be a different performance from Boots against one of those guys. Don’t worry about that, but now we got a really big decision to make.
“I never like giving up world titles, but sometimes the time is right. And, you know, we may get a substantial offer to fight Vergil Ortiz in Saudi Arabia. And then, from there, it’s on Jaron and Bozy. That’s it. And he’ll get my advice, but these are the guys that will make the decision. But, for me, I think it’s only unification or Ortiz. That’s it.”