Promoter Eddie Hearn is confident he can put together a unification fight for Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis and one of the other champions at 147 in the first quarter of 2025.
Boots (32-0, 29 KOs) has a title defense of his IBF welterweight belt against mandatory Karen Chukhadzhian on November 9 in Philadelphia. After that fight, Ennis’ next match will be to fight one of the champions.
“We run a business,” Eddie Hearn told Fight Hub TV when asked about why he lost the purse for Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis’ fight against Karen Chukhadzhian. “At the number we bid, we have already made a huge investment in that fight. He (Boots) also has minimums.
“People don’t understand wallets. A fighter has a minimum in his contract, and sometimes the bid is less than the minimum because you don’t want to overpay the opponent, and Chukhadzhian is already overpaid,” Hearn said.
This time, Boots Ennis was fortunate that Hearn was able to strike a deal with Chukhadzhian’s management so they could agree to fight in Philadelphia. But if Hearn keeps losing purses for Boots Ennis’ fights, he’s going to be fighting all over the world, and eventually that could lead to him losing. Visiting fighters often find it difficult to win decisions against hometown guys. Hearn needs to do a better job of winning the purse bid for Boots.
“So, we sat down with Jaron and said, ‘Look, this is the number we’re comfortable bidding,'” Hearn said. “Financially it is already a disaster for us, but we are going to support it. Let’s try to finish this fight. His promoters came up with this crazy bid.
“Now, whether they could do it or not, I reached out to them and said, ‘Look, what do you want to do? Where do you want to fight this fight? Do you want to do it? Do you have the facilities for that, or do you want to cooperate and do it with us?’ And we made an agreement to do it together,” Hearn said.
If Boots ended up fighting Karen in Germany or Ukraine, that would have been interesting. Hearn would have been heavily criticized by fans, especially if Boots had lost.
“The reason we decided to do this fight is because I had a very frank and honest conversation with Jaron Ennis, who told me: ‘My dream in boxing is to unify the division and have multiple belts in winning the division.’ He’s going to do it at 154, and he’s going to do it at 160,” Hearn said.
If Boots isn’t confident he can win at 154, he should stay where he is, fight the no name guys at 147, and hope that when he gets to Crawford’s age at 37, he’ll be a star . It took until his 15th year as a professional to become popular because he fought opposition that casual fans had never heard of.
“I asked him and Bozy a simple question. ‘Do you need to physically move to 154? How do you make the weight?’ And they said: So easy. I’m like, ‘Then we should unite.’ “Well, but this fight.” “I know, but sometimes you have to get things done,” Hearn says. “We’re going to build a massive map around that (Karen Chukhadzhian fight). People are going to understand the journey.”
Boots could probably stay at welterweight for years, but that doesn’t mean he has to. His career would take off much faster if he moved up to 154 now and started fighting guys like Vergil Ortiz, Tim Tszyu, Serhii Bohachuk and Israil Madrimov.
There’s no point in Boots staying at 147 if Hearn can’t come up with the money to pay the other champions they want. If $1.7 million is Hearn’s sticking point, he’s never going to get the three welterweight champions to agree to fight Boots. They know that their chances of winning are slim. So of course they are going to charge a lot of money because they are better off keeping their world titles unless they are paid a lot.
“‘We must deal with this man, and then we will unite.’ When I looked at the other champions. If it was Spence and all these other champions. I’m just not going to fight him. It’s Norman ,” Hearn said.
“Boots is the biggest fight for all those guys. Sooner or later one of those guys is going to realize they have to take the fight. They are the ones who are going to be paid, and I am confident that we can make that unification in the first quarter of 2025,” Hearn said.
For Hearn to be confident of making a unification, it has to mean he’s willing to pay big money because he’s not going to get either champion to agree to fight Boots without top dollar not pay WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr. wanted $2.2 million to fight Boots, but Hearn didn’t want to go beyond $1.7 million.
“So, I made the decision to pay. I made the decision to double the card. To bring in Bam. Putting Ray Ford in a really good fight. To put Khalil Coe on. This is a brilliant card. Sometimes you have to wipe your mouth and say, ‘It is what it is. Let’s get on with it. Let’s get this battle won, and we must try to unite in 2025.
“Then as soon as we do that, we go again and try to unite again and try to go uncontested. But at least once before we make the move to 154.
“I believe when Jaron wins in November and unifies the division, it will be very difficult for Terence to avoid that fight unless he has retired from the sport because Boots is going to get bigger and bigger. Once he unifies, there’s going to be real momentum for that fight, but it might take His Excellency putting the money in for Crawford to say, ‘Okay, I’ll do it’.”
Hearn is not considering the time it will take for Ennis to complete his goal of becoming the undisputed welterweight champion. Without the Matchroom boss willing to offer crazy money to the three champions at 147, it could take Boots two or more years to reach his goal.
By then, Crawford will either be retired or beaten by one or more of the 154-lb fighters. He is already showing age and was lucky to win his debut at junior middleweight against Israil Madrimov.
“They’re not going to want to do it. Nobody really wants to fight Boots, let’s be honest,” Hearn said.
Of course, the welterweight champions are not going to want to fight Boots. Again, without Hearn throwing crazy money at them, they and their promoters are going to have nothing to do with Ennis. It’s the same thing with Hearn and his other fighters.
He didn’t throw in vulnerable guys like Edgar Berlanga with fighters he couldn’t beat until he matched him against Canelo Alvarez to get the mega bucks. He wasn’t going to take chances with berlanga. It’s the same with other fighters who don’t want to face Boots Ennis. They won’t unless Hearn digs deep and pays whatever their asking price is.
