“Terence Crawford sends ‘Boots’ Ennis a message after boring performance”

Terence Crawford could have jumped on the Jaron “Boots” Ennis bandwagon after his underwhelming unanimous decision victory over Karen Chukhadzhian on Saturday night at Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia, but he didn’t go that route.

Instead, Crawford took to social media to offer his potential rival some advice and a little encouragement.

Crawford admitted he didn’t see the fight, but heard that Chukhadzhian Boots gave more than he expected in their rematch. The four-division champion told Boots: “Not all nights will be the same” and urged him to “never get too comfortable in this game”.

Here’s Crawford’s Post on X.

Crawford’s contribution was sage advice and quite admirable – especially by a boxer’s standards. Ennis has repeatedly challenged Crawford to a fight.

I spoke to both men about the effort earlier this year and while there is mutual respect, there seemed to be some frustration from Ennis because Crawford wouldn’t accept his challenge. After Saturday’s win, in which Ennis took far too many punches and once again struggled to finish against an opponent who even Boots described as a “lower class guy”.

Ennis maintains his desire to compete against better competition despite Saturday’s underwhelming performance. He spoke to the media after Saturday’s fight and shared his belief that he would get the best out of him by fighting better fighters. That remains to be seen, and it’s a tough sell to fans and others in the boxing community.

Fighters like Ryan Garcia wasted no time in issuing harsh criticism after Ennis’ win. Garcia predicted that he would knock Boots out if they fought, and based on the number of times Chukhadzhian landed his left hook, that doesn’t sound like a crazy prediction considering how deadly Garcia is with the same punch.

Ennis had an answer for Garcia, who he said only does “talks and tweets.”

Golden Boy Promotion’s Oscar De La Hoya immediately reported a possible fight between Boots and Vergil Ortiz Jr. This fight could potentially headline the suddenly more practical Matchroom vs. Golden Boy fight card.

As of this writing, with Ennis moving past 147 and possible unification fights against fighters like Brian Norman Jr. and Mario Barrios, a matchup with Ortiz seems like a good matchup. Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn said WBA welterweight champion Eimantas Staniosis was interested in fighting Ennis in a unification bout.

Hearn’s mention of this potential fight sounds like an attempt to push his fighter into a more winnable match rather than throwing him to the sharks at 154 pounds. Based on what we saw on Saturday night, Ennis should probably take Hearn’s nudge and Crawford’s advice.

Continue honing your craft and honing those skills against fighters like Staniosis, Barrios and Norman before moving up to face bigger and better competitors.