IBF welterweight champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis (33-0, 29 KOs) will finalize a unification fight against WBA belter Eimantas Stanionis (15-1, 9 KOs) in a show promoted by Matchroom on DAZN for on April 12 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The ring reports that Ennis vs. Stanionis is close to being finalized. However, staging the fight in Atlantic City is a strange place, as there aren’t many boxing events there anymore these days. It would make more sense for the fight to be in Boots’ hometown of Philadelphia, but given how bad he was in his last fight against Karen Chukhadzhian, maybe it’s better that it’s in Atlantic City.
Ennis’ Quest for Undisputed
Boots took a lot of flak from fans for turning down a fight against Vergil Ortiz Jr. at 154 in favor of staying at 147 to continue working on his goal of becoming the undisputed welterweight champion.
Ennis, 27, has the right promoter, Eddie Hearn, to make his dream come true, but still looks like a waste. The three champions Jaron has to beat, Stanionis, Mario Barrios and Brian Norman Jr., are not household names in the United States.
Terence Crawford’s popularity grew when he defeated Errol Spence to become the undisputed welterweight champion in 2023, but he was a star. Boots won’t have it because the three champions he’ll be fighting are completely unknown to casual fans.
‼️ Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis vs. Eimantas Stanionis is now all but finalized for a WBA and IBF world title unification fight on April 12 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, The Ring has learned. pic.twitter.com/JM3dQa8xuT
— Ring Magazine (@ringmagazine) January 19, 2025
“It’s about time Boots got in the ring with someone,” Tim Bradley told the State of boxingscolding Jaron Ennis for coasting throughout his nine-year professional career without fighting an A-level fighter. “He had many opportunities to get in the ring with many guys, Vergil Ortiz at that, but he chose not to.”
Boots Under Fire
Jaron Ennis is coming off a poor performance in his rematch against his IBF mandatory Karen Chukhadjian on Nov. 9 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
Karen made Ennis look really bad in that fight, outboxing him and hitting him with pots all night; if not for Chukhadzhian gassing in the championship rounds, Ennis would have lost. If Hearn had made a deal with WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr. for a unification fight, Boots could temporarily avoid Karen’s revenge. He still had to fight, but he could have delayed it and kept his stocks from falling to their lowest level.
On top of all that, Ennis made things worse for himself by turning down a career payday to challenge Vergil Ortiz Jr. for his interim WBC junior middleweight title on the Artur Beterbiev vs Dmitry Bivol 2 card on February 22 in Riyadh.
That event will be shown on DAZN PPV, and it would have been a perfect vehicle for Ennis to increase his star power with just one fight. Beat Vergil Jr. would have done much more to turn Ennis into a global superstar than for him to become the undisputed champion at 147 by beating three little-known champions. It is fear on the part of Ennis or a lack of ambition that led him to step up the fight against Vergil Ortiz Jr?
I can see which promoter Eddie Hearn is against it trying to turn Jaron Ennis into a star. Boots makes it difficult to turn him into a star with his ham-handed moves.
