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Jaron “Boots” Ennis faced a lot of criticism over his last couple of performances and made it no secret that he was looking to end the doubts about him with a showcase performance. He would get that opportunity in what was expected to be a stern test against fellow welterweight titleholder Eimantas Stanionis in a unification match, and what resulted what a one-sided beatdown to take the IBF and WBA titles.
Ennis (34-0, 30 KO) started the fight quickly, establishing an active jab to the head and body while placing power shots behind it from both the orthodox and southpaw stances. In particular Ennis would make early investments in his body attack and he landed some clean early ones that would break the forward momentum of the aggressive Stanionis (15-1, 9 KO).
The problem for Stanionis, however, was that he was unable to sustain an offensive attack as Ennis showed plenty of slickness defensively — although there were still defensive lapses on Ennis’ behalf when he would showboat throughout the fight — or keep up with Boots’ speed and pace offensively. Of course for Boots, he likes to fight like he’s having fun, and he had plenty of fun tonight.
A sixth round body attack from Boots would have Stanionis collapse under duress and despite making it out of that round, an already bloodied Stanionis was deemed to have endured enough by his corner, and that’s where the fight was stopped. Stanionis did not contest the stoppage.
So Boots scores another impressive performance, and this one against a credible opponent, and says he wants to take some time to enjoy this victory and his hard work before thinking about whether he’ll continue to look to unify the division or otherwise.
Undercard Results
Raymond Ford UD-10 Thomas Mattice. Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) cruised to a unanimous decision win tonight on three shutout scorecards of 100-90 over Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs). Really it was just easy work for Ford, who showcased his speed, accuracy and combination punching to dominate a bigger opponent in Mattice — who himself didn’t have a lot to offer outside of his toughness, landing only 24 total punches over 10 rounds according to the punch stats. Ford looks to move on to bigger and better fights from here.
Omari Jones KO-1 William Jackson. Omari Jones (2-0, 2 KOs) has high hopes for his boxing career, and in his second professional fight he would deliver a swift first round knockout against William Jackson (13-6-2, 5 KOs). Despite Jackson having a respectable looking record for someone going against an opponent in their second professional fight, he actually hadn’t notched a win in over 10 years going into this fight. Jones first solid body shot put Jackson down for the count, which is to be expected after Jackson nearly tumbled to the canvas off a feint from Jones.
Shakhram Giyasov KO-4 Franco Ocampo. Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made short work of his opponent Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in tonight’s DAZN opener, scoring a body shot knockout of Ocampo in the fourth round. The fight almost didn’t even make it out of the first round after Ocampo was hurt badly by a shot and put down on the follow up, but quickly came to a just a few rounds later after Giyasov continued to impose his power and accuracy.
