Jaron “Boots” Ennis moved a step closer to boxing superstardom on Saturday, securing his signature win so far by stopping Xander Zayas.
Ennis dropped the Puerto Rican three times in their super-welterweight title fight in Brooklyn, finding the finish in round seven to relieve Zayas of the WBO and WBA titles.
Zayas, 23, had never before been beaten, but neither had Ennis, and the Philadelphia fighter entered the Barclays Center as the favourite – but with fans expecting a challenge for Boots.
And despite the broad details of the fight and result, Boots did get that challenge at times, such as in round three, where he looked out on his feet as he ate shot after shot from the champion.
However, Zayas took his fair share of punishment in that round, and he had already been dropping in the opening frame, when Ennis went southpaw and landed a clean left then a fine flurry of follow-up punches.
The second knockdown came in the fifth round, when Ennis landed a short right uppercut, and the finish came in the seventh, with the 28-year-old burrowing a right hook into the body of Zayas, before clattering him with a one-two upstairs.
Zayas’s corner motioned to the referee to stop the fight, with the boxer (23-1, 13 KOs) nodding his head and managing a wry smile.
With that, Ennis moved to 36-0 (32 KOs) and collected two super-welterweight titles, following his spell at welterweight, where he reigned as IBF champion.
Boots’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, has high hopes for his fighter, who missed out on star-making welterweight clashes with Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.
However, the recently-retired Crawford seemed unimpressed by Ennis’s performance on Saturday, tweeting, “Ima keep my comments to myself, but yall get it I hope,” seemingly referencing the amount that Boots was hit by Zayas.
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