By Chris Williams: Unbeaten interim IBF welterweight champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis (30-0, 27 KOs) is rumored to be defending his title against Roiman Villa (26-1, 24 KOs) in the co-feature spot on the Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis vs. Ryan Garcia card on Showtime PPV.
Ennis vs. Villa could wind up stealing the show from the main event fight between Tank Davis and Kingry Garcia, which will likely be a total mismatch that ends in one or two rounds.
Villa, 29, will stand and fight, making it an exciting battle against Ennis for as long as it lasts. The Venezuelan fighter rallied to defeat previously unbeaten Rashidi Ellis (24-1, 15 KOs) by a 12 round majority decision earlier this month on January 7th on the Tank vs. Hector Luis Garcia card at the Capitol One Arena in Washington, D.C.
Ellis was ahead going into the 12th round, but Villa dropped him twice to win a close decision by the scores of 114-112, 114-112, and 113-113.
After the fight, the former Golden Boy-promoted 29-year-old Ellis said he wanted a rematch with Villa immediately. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, though. Villa stands to gain more by fighting Ennis than he does in needlessly running it back against Ellis, who has nothing to offer him now that he’s been beaten.
Fighting the 26-year-old ‘Boots’ Ennis is clearly the better deal for Villa because he’ll get a chance to get some important visibility fighting him on the Gervonta vs. Ryan Garcia card, which will be widely viewed.
Assuming the Ennis-Villa fight gets made, this should be a real war and a far different kind of fight compared to ‘Boots’ Ennis’ last contest against the safety-first Karen Chukhadzhian (21-2, 11 KOs), who showed no interest in standing his ground to try and win their fight on January 7th.
This writer has never seen a fighter run as much as Chukhadzhian in a 12 round fight. He was changing direction on a dime, in full flight, trying to keep as much distance as possible from the powerful Ennis.
‘Boots’ won the fight by the scores 120-108, 120-108, and 120-108, but he was widely criticized for his inability to take the legs away from Chukhadzhian by targeting his body instead of futilely trying to hit him to the head, which proved to be impossible due to the running that he was doing.