Matchroom announced today that Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis and Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez will share a card in a doubleheader on November 9, live on DAZN. The event will be held at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
Ennis (32-0, 29 KOs) will headline and defend his IBF welterweight title in a rematch against mandatory Karen Chukhadzhian. This is a questionable headline due to the lack of fan interest in the ‘Boots’ Ennis vs. Chukhadzhian rematch, but promoter Eddie Hearn hopes to turn Philadelphia native Jaron into a star.
Hearn recently lost the purse for the Ennis-Chukhadzhian, which begs the question: how did Hearn get Chukhadzhian’s management to agree to have the fight take place in Philadelphia rather than Germany?
Hearn probably had to pay a princely sum to get Chukhadzhian to agree to fight in Philadelphia. In the end, Hearn might have been better off putting the money in to win the purse, and he wouldn’t have had to deal with paying to get Team Chukhadzhian to fight in Philly.
He has his work cut out for him due to the absence of notable fighters at 147 and his unwillingness to pay the champions to agree to fight Ennis. They won’t agree to lowball offers for fights they have little chance of winning to come to Philadelphia.
British promoter Hearn is going to have to understand the American fighters because he doesn’t seem to have any understanding of how Americans work.
Hearn recently failed to negotiate a deal with WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr. when he was faced with dropping the deal by $500,000 from $1.7 million to $2.2 million sweetened for a unification clash. Team Norman was willing to agree to the $1.7 million to fight Ennis in Las Vegas, but Hearn did not agree to the offer.
Hearn thinks that after Boots fights Karen, Norman’s team will see the light and agree to his offer. I seriously doubt it. If anything, their price will likely rise to $3 million after Norman Jr. destroyed Derrieck Cuevas on November 8th, and he looks like a golden idol in that performance.
It is important that Hearn does a better job of matching Ennis as he is off to a poor start with him against David Avanesyan and now Chukhadzhian. The way things are going, Ennis is headed in the same direction as Demetrius Andrade, a former Matchroom fighter, who beat Hearn against poor opposition and failed to advance his career.
WBC super flyweight champion ‘Bam’ Rodriguez (20-0, 13 KOs) defends against Pedro Guevara (42-4-1, 22 KOs) in the co-feature. Fans on social media believe the Rodriguez vs. Guevara fight should be the true headliner, as there is more interest in that bout than the main event mismatch between Boots and Chukhadzhian.
Ennis already beat that man a year ago on January 7 with a lopsided unanimous decision of 12 rounds and won with the scores 120-108, 120-108 and 120-108.
