Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis says his inability to knock out Karen Chukhadzhian last year had nothing to do with what he did during their fight in Washington, DC.
Boots (32-0, 29 KOs) blames it on himself for going into the fight trying to get a knockout instead of having fun like he usually does. Chukhadzhian (24-2, 13 KOs) took advantage of Ennis swinging wildly by making him miss and landing annoying shots that made him look bad.
IBF welterweight champion Ennis, 27, will get the chance to show fans he can knock out Chukhadzhian #1 when they meet next month in a rematch on November 9 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
Chukhadzhian has a three-fight winning streak to earn the mandatory position to face Ennis again, and he will want to take advantage of this opportunity. Ennis feels that Chukhadzhian will try to be more aggressive this time as he did not win a round last time and lost by scores of 120-108, 120-108 and 120-108.
This will be Ennis’ second fight for Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom, and he should be looking good as the British promoter has hyped him up with fans. Unfortunately, Ennis was unimpressive in his first fight under Hearn’s wing, getting hit hard by David Avanesyan on July 13. He won with a fifth-round knockout, but it wasn’t a spectacular effort.
“It wasn’t him. It was me. My mindset was, ‘I’m knocking him out.’ You can’t fight like that if you think you’re just going to knock someone out,” Jaron Ennis said. Brian Mazique about what happened last year in his previous fight against Karen Chukhadzhian.
“I went away from me not having my fun, and as soon as I go back to having my fun, it’s going to be another knockout. In this next fight, I’m going to put on a show and not look for it. Just let me be myself. Don’t look for the knockout punch. As you saw in my last fight I came back to have fun, the knockout came,” Ennis said of his showdown against David Avanesyan last July.
It would be better if Ennis just gave Chukhadzhian credit for making him look poor rather than putting it on himself for fighting a bad fight. The way Ennis talks, he sounds like he’s just making excuses and doesn’t know how to admit he doesn’t have the talent to do the job.
“He is not going to change his style. He might be a little more. He tried to box in the last fight, but he didn’t win a round. I feel like he’s going to get a little bit more involved this time, but I feel like as soon as he gets touched, he’s going to be back on his bike,” Ennis said.
Chukhadzhian always fights in a defensive manner for every battle. It is therefore silly for Ennis to assume that he will aggressively fight him in the rematch. What Chukhadzhian will likely do is try to steal a few rounds and make Ennis look bad again. This would hurt his chances of getting a fight against Terence Crawford.
“It was up to me in the last fight. Those were things I did wrong, not him. He’s been winning since we fought, and he’s become the mandatory. So, that’s how it happened,” Ennis said.
It looked like the same Jaron Ennis as usual, but he faced a fighter with impressive defensive skills who was on par with Shakur Stevenson. Against a defensive performer like Chukhadzihian, Ennis has to fight much differently because he’s not going to knock this guy out by swinging for the fences.
