By Allan Fox: Trainer Derek ‘Bozy’ Ennis believes his son, Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis (31-0, 28 KOs), is the best at 147 after his tenth round knockout win over Roiman Villa (26-2, 24 KOs) last Saturday night, and he’ll prove that once he fights Errol Spence Jr & Terence Crawford.
Bozy thinks the Spence-Crawford winner of the July 29th fight will have to relinquish the IBF title because Boots Ennis’ mandatory shot will be due at that point.
The International Boxing Federation are allowing IBF champion Spence to fight Crawford this month with their 147-lb title at stake, but he’ll need to face Boots next or vacate. In other words, they’re not going to allow Spence to hold onto it indefinitely without making a mandatory defense.
Spence won’t agree to fight Boots after his July 29th fight against Crawford because those two are signed for two fights, and the money will be huge.
After the second fight between Spence & Crawford, they’ll move up to 154. They probably won’t want to come back down to 147 to fight a shark like Boots because the pickings are easier at 154, and there’s good money to be made fighting guys like Tim Tszyu, Danny Garcia, and Sebastian Fundora.
Will Crawford or Spence fight Boots?
“He’ll be back. He lives in the gym,” said trainer Derek ‘Bozy’ Ennis to Fighthype, talking about his son, Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis, getting back to work on Monday following his tenth round knockout win over Roiman Villa last Saturday night.
You’ll see once we fight one of them guys,” Bozy said when asked if Boots Ennis is the best at 147, better than Errol Spence & Terence Crawford. “If they fight us, you’re going to see. I’m telling you that he’s going to go to another level. You’ll see that there are levels he can go to.”
If Boots is willing to chase Spence & Crawford up to 154, he’s got a shot at fighting them next year, but it might not have any belts on the line unless they’re fragmented by undisputed junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo.
There’s money in fighting Crawford or Spence for Boots, but he might mess up his weight if he goes up to 154 and then returns to 147. That’s sometimes hard for fighters.
“You see that when he [Roiman Villa] fought Rashidi [Ellis]. I thought Rashidi was beating him,” said Bozy. “Well, Boots is no Rashidi, like I told them. I knew Boots was going to stop him. He could have stopped him earlier, too, but he was having fun. We don’t do that all the time,” said Bozy.
Ennis rises to his competition
“It all depends on the fighter that he’s fighting. If you fight somebody they can really fight, he goes to another level,” Bozy said about Jaron ‘Boots.’ This guy’s [Roiman Villa] tough. Nobody never stopped this guy, and the guy can punch. Y’all just seen a little bit of it.”
Boots looked a lot more motivated for his fight with Roiman than he had in his previous contest against the little-known Karen Chukhadzhian last January. Of course, it was easier for Boots because Villa wasn’t as slick as Karen and he wasn’t running all night.
“They wanted to stop the fight before that. Espinoza wanted that fight stopped,” said Bozy. “He’s [Villa] messed up from here all the way up. All this is messed up [torso to head] and everything. His eyes is messed up. His nose is probably broke.
“I did,” said Bozy when asked if he REALLY thought the fight would be so one-sided between Boots and Villa. “Because the guy was coming at us. You got to be set to throw punches. All you got to do is give a little movement. A little pivot here. Every now and then, you pop him,” said Bozy.
Villa fought tentatively in the first couple of rounds, and he didn’t get into the fight until after his nose was busted in round two. He needed to start fast against Ennis, and made the mistake of waiting too long.
“You saw what Boots was doing by stabbing him to the body and breaking him down,” said Bozy. “How many times did we almost have him out before he knocked him out?
“Stanionis, we’d take him on in a heartbeat. That’s a tough fight,” said Bozy about a potential match in August between Keith Thurman and Yordenis Ugas. “Neither one of them,” said Bozy when asked which of the two between Thurman & Ugas gives Boots a tougher fight.
Boots had the perfect opponent
“You saw the guy was talking him down, and Boots beat him at his own game on the inside. You seen them body shots and headshots,” said Bozy about Ennis taking the fight to Villa in the later rounds to beat him up on the inside.
“By going to the body, you could see by the third or fourth round, the power started changing [for Villa], but his [Boots Ennis] power didn’t change.
“He was one of the best, even though he couldn’t do too much with Boots, and he was putting that pressure on. He was trying to fight. He wasn’t like the one [Karen Chukhadzhian] we fought last time that ran. If you don’t run, what’s going to happen to you?
“If I’m going to bet my money, I’m going to lean towards Spence a little bit,” said Bozy when asked who wins the fight between Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford on July 29th.
“The reason I said that is because Crawford starts off slow. Every time Crawford comes out, he comes out slow, and he gets caught a couple of times, and he got dropped one time, and then he gets serious. You wake him up.
“You can’t do that with Spence because he’s a great basic fighter, hands up high, nothing spectacular, and walk you down behind the jab and then beats you up with the body shots.
“He [Crawford] better [start fast], but he’s a great fighter, too, though, but he’s got to be on his P’s & Q’s messing with Spence. That might be his downfall,” said Bozy about how Crawford gets lured into wars with his opponents after he gets hit.
“You can say that, yeah,” said Bozy on whether his fight with Villa was Boots’ best performance of his career. “He didn’t hardly get hit with nothing. A lot of people were talking about stopping it, even with some of the commissioners there,” said Bozy.
