Promoter Eddie Hearn was sky-high after his fighter IBF welterweight champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis’ sixth round TKO victory over Eimantas Stanionis last Saturday night in Atlantic City.
After Boots’s win, Hearn said he would beat anyone at 147 and 154, including Vergil Ortiz Jr, who Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) had declined to fight in favor of what many believe to be a considerably smaller payday fighting Stanionis (15-1, 9 KOs).
“Beats Him Easy”?
Hearn stated that Ennis would beat Vergil Jr. (23-0, 21 KOs) “easy” and that he’d just defeated the best fighter in the welterweight division, Stanionis.
Both of those comments are hard to swallow because Vergil Ortiz Jr. is fighting on a different level than what we saw from Boots last night and in his two previous fights against Karen Chukhadzhian and David Avanesyan.
No one would believe that Eimantas Stanionis is the best fighter in the welterweight division. The way Stanionis looked last night, he would lose to ALL of these 147-lb fighters:
– Brian Norman Jr.
– Shakhram Giyasov
– Karen Chukhadzhian
– Ryan Garcia
– Devin Haney
– Josh Taylor
– Abel Ramos
– Mario Barrios
– Conor Benn
– Giovani Santillan
– Alexis Rocha
– Rohan Polanco
“Beats him easy,” said Eddie Hearn to Ring Magazine when asked how Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis would do against WBC interim junior middleweight champion Vergil Ortiz Jr. “Great fighter, Vergil Ortiz. I know my friends over at Golden Boy, but I’ve got to be honest: I think Jaron Ennis just plays with him.”
The way Ennis looked against Stanionis, he wouldn’t beat Vergil Jr. He would lose that fight. Ennis’s decision to turn down a fight against Ortiz Jr. showed that he lacked the confidence to fight him. Last night, Boots was still talking about wanting to stay at welterweight. That means he doesn’t believe he’s good enough to fight at 154 against killers like Vergil, Terence Crawford, Sebastian Fundora, Israel Madrimov, and Serhii Bohachuk.
Best at Welterweight?
“He likes to get people out of there. Obviously, we’re a bit high off of that performance, and we’re going to call out the world. I just think he’s a special talent,” said Hearn about Boots. “That’s going to stick him on the pound-for-pound list, and he’s going to keep on rising.
“He’s 27 years old, and I’d been wanting to sign him for five years. The last performance [against Karen Chukhadzhian], even the [David] Avanesyan one, solid, but I knew how special this kid [Ennis] is. Tonight, he fought the best welterweight in the world [Eimantas Stanionis], and absolutely battered him, he played with him.
