Terence Crawford chose to lend some advice to Jaron Ennis rather than putting him on blast after his mediocre performance.
‘Boots’ retained his IBF welterweight title on Saturday night by beating Karen Chukhadzhian via unanimous decision in a rematch.
Ennis was on the verge of closing the show early in the fifth round when he sunk Chukhadzhian to one knee with a flurry of body shots.
But despite his corner’s pleas to ‘get him outta here already!’ Ennis and Chukhadzhian went the distance in a repeat result of their inaugural encounter.
En route to the final bell, Ennis chased the stoppage with reckless abandon and got caught with several shots he shouldn’t have.
The 27-year-old was wobbled by a pair of blows in the first and eleventh round – although he remained on his feet.
Ennis was never in trouble of dropping a decision, but the margins narrowed from his shutout display last time, with the latest scorecards reading 119-107, 117-109 and 116-110 in his favour.
‘Boots’, widely touted to be a future pound-for-pound star of boxing, would have hoped for a more impressive performance to punch his ticket for a super fight with Crawford.
However, it wasn’t to be. Taking to X, formerly Twitter, in the immediate aftermath Crawford wrote of Ennis’ latest outing: “I did[n’t] see the fight, but I heard about it.
“Stay focused and keep working on your craft. Every nights not going to be the same.
“Never get too comfortable in this game, if you trying to get to the mecca of the sport.
“Stay on your mission because all it takes is 1 slip up.”
He may not be at the front of the queue to box Crawford next but Ennis appears to be moving up to his fellow countryman’s super welterweight category.
“My performance was ok, I don’t know man, I think it might be time to move up to 154lbs,” he said post-fight.
“I felt good but I just feel like at 154lbs I’ll be way better and my pop will be like it is supposed to be.
“I’m older now, I’m 27, I’ll be 28 next year… I wanted to be better than last time and I wanted that knockout.
“I hurt him a lot of times and I was rushing but it’s ok.”
The Chukhadzhian rematch was essentially forced on Ennis by the IBF, who somehow came to the conclusion that the Ukrainian was a worthy mandatory.
Having already beaten Chukhadzhian convincingly ‘Boots’ hinted that he struggled to ‘get up’ for the fight.
“Right now, it’s probably the bigger names,” he said on what he wants next.
“When you fight bottom-tier guys sometimes it is hard to get up for them.
“But I know if I fight a way better guy then I will be crazy, I’ll be on point. I’m not saying he is a bad guy but I’m ready for these top guys.”
