Jaron ‘Boots’ is doing well as the IBF welterweight champion, facing nondescript opposition for Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom, but I don’t think he has a chance if he chooses to move up to Bakhram Murtazaliev for his IBF junior middleweight title not.
Ennis (32-0, 29 KO) is spinning his wheels at 147, hoping to one day become the undisputed champion in the division. He will eventually realize that he will never get the chance to fight for any of the welterweight titles due to a combination of the other champions’ financial demands and network and promotional issues.
For Ennis’ sake, he needs to wake up and understand that his promoter, Hearn, won’t be able to give him the fights he needs at welterweight to achieve his goal. He needs to move up while he still has youth left.
Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) would likely delight Boots by giving him a shot at his IBF belt if the money was right. It wouldn’t be the fight Murtazaliev wants, but he’s going to be shunned by the other 154-lb champions after what he did to former WBO champion Tim Tszyu last Saturday night in Orlando, Florida.
Murtazaliev will now be shunned by the plague by the other champions. It will be much worse than it was before when the champions gave Murtazaliev side deals so they could avoid him.
Why Murtazaliev beat Ennis:
– Skills
– Work rate
– Power
– Experience
Ennis is a capable fighter at 147, but he isn’t shown out-of-this-world power, and he gets hit a lot. We saw Boots live and die with the heavy-handed Roiman Villa on July 8th last year.
Ennis took a career penalty against Villa. Additionally, Boots was made to look like he had two left feet by Karen Chukhadzhian in their 12-round fight in January 2023. Boots looked so bad in that fight that people still talk about it to this day.
Murtazaliev’s strength would play a huge factor in why he would destroy Boots Ennis. He’s obviously a big puncher. Ennis also has good power, but it’s not extreme like Murtazaliev’s.
Normally it takes Boots many rounds for him to score knockouts, and it is against the lower level opposition that his management has matched him against. It recently took Boots ten rounds to knock out Roiman Villa. In Roiman’s last fight on September 14, he was knocked out by Ricardo Salas Rodriguez in the 3rd round. That guy is not a big player at 147.
Sooner or later Boots is going to have to take risks with his career by moving up to 154 because he’s not going anywhere at 147. His promoter, Hearn, has already reached an impasse in getting the other champions to fight him, and he has not been shown to be willing to meet their asking price. If Boots moves up, he could face Murtazaliev and show the boxing world what he can do against a fighter who so easily obliterated Tszyu.
If Ennis were to conquer Murtzaliev, his career would shoot through the roof because the Russian’s popularity is sky high after the way he demolished Tszyu. Beating Murtazaliev now would be worth 100 wins over Karen Chukhadzhian, and that’s the kind of opposition he’ll be up against if he chooses to stay at 147 with his hopeless dream of capturing the undisputed championship one day in the distant future .
A fight between Ennis and Murtazalev will be seen as a 50-50 match. Fans will be excited to watch the competition as it will be like a monster movie. Instead of Boots fighting the random guys his promoter Hearn digs up for him, he’ll be facing someone who can beat him.
