Is Jaron Ennis “out of the loop” again? The boots must demand a fight against Teófimo López

Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis needs to make sure he is not left out of the loop in his negotiations for a mega fight against Teofimo Lopez in early 2025. Ennis (33-0, 29 KOs) felt he was caught off guard when he was offered a fight against Vergil . Ortiz Jr. on February 22.

The “out of the loop” excuse

This time, IBF welterweight champion Ennis (33-0, 29 KOs) must participate because a fight against Teofimo (21-1, 13 KOs) will boost his slowly advancing career.

Fans no longer believe Boots’ excuse for choosing not to fight Vergil, considering it a case of old-fashioned fear. His last opponent, Karen Chukhadzhian, humiliated him on November 9 and Ortiz Jr. could do much worse to him. Ennis’ excuse of being kept out of his team has backfired on fans, who see him lacking courage after what happened to him against Karen.

Lopez shows that he is not afraid to accept the challenge of moving up to 147. It seems bad that Ennis was not willing to do the same by moving up to 154 in a fight to challenge Vergil Jr. for his WBC interim title in His Excellency Turki. Alalshikh show in Riyadh on February 22.

Teofimo started his career at lightweight and moved up to 140 in 2022. Teo has only had five fights at light welterweight and is now making the jump to 147 to challenge Boots. That’s impressive.

The downside to Ennis taking this fight against Lopez is that if he is defeated or struggles to win, his stock will drop even more than it is now after his decision to sit out the fight with Vergil Jr. It would be hard to see Boots come back from a loss or a bad performance against Teófimo and become a popular guy.

Prove the skeptics wrong

Lance Pugmire reports that Teofimo’s promoter Bob Arum is negotiating with Matchroom boss Eddie Hearn to book the fight for a joint DAZN/ESPN pay-per-view event early next year. Now that Terence Crawford has moved up in weight, it is the best fight that can be made for Boots at 147.

We must wait and see if this fight comes to fruition because it still needs to be negotiated. Teofimo could choose to play on the A side with Ennis, which would ruin any chance of the match. Boots sees himself as the king of the 147-pound division, and now he is in terms of talent. Conor Benn, Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia are more popular than Ennis because they have personalities.

Ennis wants to be a star, but he can’t do it unless he negotiates the fight with Teofimo and faces Haney, Ryan and Benn.