“My main target right now is Xander Zayas,” Ennis said on DAZN’s Inside The Ring. “I’m not worried about anybody else right now. After I won on June 27 and became unified champion at 154, bring them on.”
The 28-year-old from Philadelphia has long been linked to the biggest names around the weight classes near him, but several routes have not materialized. A fight against Vergil Ortiz Jr. were discussed before Ortiz’s promotional dispute changed those plans.
Ennis said once that option disappeared, he told promoter Eddie Hearn to secure Zayas next.
“He’s not choosing to fight me. I told Eddie to go get him after negotiations went through with Ortiz,” Ennis said. “I appreciate him taking this fight because he didn’t have to take this fight. He could have fought someone else.”
Zayas (23) enters undefeated and already holds two belts, making the fight one of the biggest at 154 this year. It also gives Ennis the type of opponent critics said he needed after leaving welterweight.
Yet Ennis looks beyond one night. He made it clear that he believes the division belongs to him if the leading names continue to hold each other.
“I’m ready to take over the division one by one,” Ennis said. “I’m going to knock them down one by one and show the world why I’m the best. I’ll be undisputed at 154.”
We watched Ennis rot on the vine at 147 while the big names played musical chairs and held out for purses that simply didn’t exist for anyone not named Canelo or Crawford.
The move to 154 is supposed to be the big recovery, but the economic reality hasn’t changed for Ennis. The “undisputed” dream usually remains a dream: the walking tax and the promotional pride allowance.
Eddie Hearn is great at selling the vision, but he’s not exactly known for overpaying for titles. If the other champions in the division see Ennis as a high-risk, low-reward headache, they will slap a price tag on their belts that effectively prices him out of the market.
If Zayas loses his belts on June 27, he’s out of the picture. But the guys who actually hold the leverage, the ones with the other ties, aren’t going to do Hearn any favors. They know Ennis is a phenomenon, and phenomena have to pay a premium to get anyone in the ring with them.
If Ennis can’t get those unifications because the cold, hard cash isn’t there, he’s just going to be a 154-pound version of what he was at 147: a guy with a few belts and nobody to fight.
We saw this play out for years with the Crawford and Spence saga. If the money doesn’t make sense for the promoters, the “undisputed” talk is just a convenient marketing tool to sell a DAZN subscription.
