Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis was in no mood to give credit to challenger Karen Chukhadzhian for her outstanding performance in their rematch on Saturday night at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Boots (33-0, 29 KOs) retained his IBF welterweight title, winning a 12-round unanimous decision, but Chukhadzhian (24-3, 13 KOs) deserved credit instead of being called out”the bottom line” fighter from him in the post-fight interview.
The scores:
– 119-107
– 117-109
– 116-110
Ennis and Bozy panic
Chukhadzhian’s powerful shots and skills had Ennis and his coach/father, Derek ‘Bozy’ Ennis, panicking for the seventh time. Bozy continued to bark the same instruction, telling him to get the knockout. He made it sound like Boots could just randomly come out and score a knockout at any time when the reality was he was drowning. There were no real instructions from Bozy. He was just telling Ennis to go for the knockout and it sounded like a mess.
Boots looked embarrassed during and after the fight, as the fans weren’t cheering for him, and there were rumors about how badly he had done it. Instead of taking the high road and giving Chukhadzhian credit for outboxing him for most of the fight, Ennis said he didn’t do well because he wasn’t motivated.
Ennis scored a fifth-round knockout when he landed a series of hard shots after catching Chukhadzhian with a powerful left. He didn’t look hurt, but he fell because Ennis was following him and throwing punches non-stop. Chukhadzhian could not escape the pressure. In the tenth, the referee took a point from Chukhadzhian to keep.
The referee should have penalized Boots for the low blows he hit Karen with all during the fight, because those were much worse than the hold that was going on.
Boots Battles Against “Bottom-Tier Fighter”
Chris Mannix: “Your offense is still among the best in the welterweight division, if not the best, but for the second fight in a row, we’ve seen you get hit more often than we’ve seen in the past. What should you do defensively to be better for these big battles,” said Chris Mannix of DAZN to Jaron Ennis after his win over Karen Chukhadjian.
Jaron Ennis: “Just fight the bigger names. Sometimes when you fight the bottom guys, you don’t stand up for them,” Ennis said. “I know if I’ll beat a better man. I’ll be crazy. I’ll be on point. That’s what will make me better. I need these top guys.”
Mannix: “I was going to ask you to unify these titles, but it looks like you’re ready to get out of 147.”
Ennis: “If we can get one of these guys, we will. If not, 154, here we go.”
Eddie Hearn: “I thought it was a great performance from Chukhadzhian. They said they would give us a performance this time, and they did. Boots is not always activated as he would be against a fighter who had a fear factor against I noticed this week that it was much tighter (translation: struggle to make weight) than normal at 147”.
