Boxing over on DAZN
Boots Ennis Lives Up to the Hype Against Stanionis
Jaron "Boots" Ennis (34-0) was crowned the heir apparent to the welterweight division after Bud Crawford and Erol Spence Jr met in July, 2023 for their undisputed clash. As Bud emerged as the undisputed champion and king of the weight class, both he and Spence announced they were immediately leaving the 147 weight class behind.
Boots was there to take over the division. He continued his winning ways but all the potential we saw for him to be a truly elite fighter seemed to not show up for every fight. Boots himself has said he struggled to get hyped up for opponents he thought were beneath his skill level. He needed a big time fight.
We saw Lithuania's Eimantas Stanionis put his WBA belt on the line in the first welterweight unification clash since the above mentioned Spence-Crawford. Stanionis is no slouch and was seen to be Ennis' equal or the clear #2. Stanionis was an olympic boxer, pressure fighter who could break down his opponents with constant jabs and thudding hooks.
From the first ring of the bell, Boots showed off his speed and reactions were much better than Stanionis'. Boots invested in body punches early which would eventually be the downfall for Stanionis. This was the type of performance that in hindsight people will say that it was just so clear that Boots was miles apart. That wasn't the discussion coming into the fight and it will only be in the dialogue now because of how dominant Boots was.
Boots has a lot of options now. He could stay at 147 and try to unify another belt, preferably against the young and up-and-coming star to be Brian Norman Jr (27-0). He has also flirted with the idea of moving up to 154 and possibly fighting the human terminator that is Vergil Ortiz Jr (23-0).
Raymond Ford Continues to Shine
Raymond Ford (17-1-1) exploded onto the scene in 2024 when he stopped Otabek Kholmatov (13-1) for the WBA featherweight title with 8 seconds left in the 12th round. It was incredible because that was a fight that Otabek was up to relatively comfortably.
Ford is now up at 130 lbs and he took on Thomas Mattice (22-5-1) who promised that he would punish and demolish Ford. By the second round it was evident that Ford was putting on a master class in the ring. He had an incredible punch variety at his disposal that Mattice was rendered into a human punching bag. The fight went the 10 round distance but completely dominated every round. He is still young, exciting and highly skilled.