“Well, he couldn’t get that fight because everybody knew how good he was. And by the way, Crawford knows how good Boots is. He would never think that Boots could beat him. But Crawford would look to say, ‘Why would I fight a guy that good who doesn’t quite have the profile, and it’s not that big of a fight? It would have said, on the monster’s fight, but he backed off on the monster’s fight. Verzace channel.
“So, you know, for a long time it was very difficult to get Boots into the big fights. We have to build him. We had to build him commercially to be able to get the dollars together, pay the guys. I had to pay Stanis a fortune. Right then, now Xander.”
Hearn believes Ennis is now positioned to reach another level of stardom as he prepares for one of the biggest fights of his career.
“This is the fight, the breakout fight to really herald the next superstar, especially in American boxing, but world boxing in Boots. I rate this guy so highly. I think if he’s going to do what I think he’s going to do to Xander, he’s going to come out as a superstar,” Hearn said.
Instead, Crawford moved up to junior middleweight and defeated Israil Madrimov to capture the WBA world title before later shifting his focus elsewhere. The long-rumored showdown with Ennis never progressed beyond speculation, leaving boxing fans to wonder how the former undisputed welterweight champion would have fared against one of the division’s most shunned contenders.
Ennis has since moved to 154 pounds and unified titles at welterweight before making the jump. He is scheduled to face WBA and WBO junior middleweight champion Xander Zayas in a high-profile unification bout on June 27, with Hearn seeing the contest as an opportunity for Ennis to establish himself among boxing’s elite names.
