Jaron Ennis Title Defence
After much anticipation, Jaron Ennis’ next fight has been announced with all details confirmed. The fight will take place July 13th in the Wells Fargo Centre, Philadelphia. The challenger to the champion will be his mandatory Cody Crowley.
Ennis recently signed with Matchroom promoted by Eddie Hearn who had previously expressed interest in signing Ennis. Hearn in an interview after the signing laid out his plan for Ennis step 1 of this plan was taking care of, “a mandatory we’re going to get that dusted off ASAP June time back in Philadelphia”. And thus this fight has materialised granted not in June but close enough Ennis defending against his mandatory.
The IBF are particularly strict with their mandatories so this fight was unavoidable lest Ennis be stripped like Crawford. In fact Ennis is champion is because he was Crawford’s mandatory but Crawford failing to defend against Ennis was stripped. This is one of the reasons being a unified or an undisputed champion is difficult with the organisations having different mandatories. Similar things happened to Lennox Lewis the last undisputed heavyweight champion.
Jaron Ennis’ return home should be a good showcase for the young champion. His mandatory Crowley is no one of particular note an undefeated southpaw who has most of his wins by way of decision. Ennis should be able to get Crowley out of there in front of his home crowd. A win over Crowley gives him at least some free reign in what to do next following the victory.
The Future for Ennis
If Ennis gets past Crowley he has quite a few options. Ennis and his promoter Eddie Hearn want ‘Boots’ to stay active so following this fight Ennis likely fights again this year. But against who is the question? Hearn has Conor Benn in his stable who is a name at 147 however he seems to still be having issues with UKAD and is not really world level. Crawford still has the rest of the belts so a Crawford fight could happen after Crawford fights Madrimov.
However, Crawford may just stay at 154 if he beats Madrimov. If so then he will likely be stripped of his other 147 titles leaving the division wide open. So Ennis should pursue other vacant title fights and aim to fight guys highly ranked by the other governing bodies. Spence would be a good name and is in most orgs ranking but he may be moving to 154 and would be viewed as Crawford’s leftovers.
This all depends on if Ennis can get past Crowley which we shall see come July 13th.
Featured image credit to Embed from Getty Images
