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Friday, March 29, 2024

Eddie Hearn Says Jaron Ennis & Demetrius Andrade Could Have More Options After Their Last Performances

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By Craig Daly: Last weekend’s performances by Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis & Demetrius Andrade left a lot to be desired despite the two winning their respective bouts on the Showtime PPV card at the Capitol One Arena in Washington, D.C.

Promoter Eddie Hearn thinks that welterweight contenders ‘Boots’ Ennis (30-0, 27 KOs) and super middleweight Andrade may find it easier to get opponents to fight them after the vulnerability they showed in their fights.

Ennis looked clueless about how to cut the ring off against his opponent Karen Chukhadzhian, and he was made to look average, even though he won every round against the defensive fighter.

Boots was swinging wildly and missing all night, showing an inability to slow down the movement of Chukhadzhian by focusing on his body.

It wasn’t all that surprising that Boots Ennis was unprepared for the fight, as before the contest, he and his trainer/father Derek ‘Bozy’ Ennis repeatedly said they’d watched none of Chukhadzhian’s past fights, and they were going to figure him out in the ring.

When you get a fighter that doesn’t do their homework to study their opponents, then you see them struggle and look lost, as Boots Ennis was against Chukhadzhian.

That will need to change with Boots moving forward because you best believe that his main competitors, Errol Spence Jr, and Terence Crawford, are studying him by watching his fights and will put together great game plans to neutralize what he does inside the ring.

The former two-division world champion Andrade (32-0, 19 KOs) defeated fringe super middleweight champion Demond Nicholson by a one-sided 10 round unanimous decision, but he fought conservatively, fighting cautiously and failing to excite the crowd.

The scores were  100-88 x 3, but it wasn’t a fun fight to watch for the fans because Andrade fought as if he were walking on eggshells the entire fight, and he needed to push the envelope to at least try and get this guy out of there.

“I think Demetrius is a fantastic fighter. He’s so skillful. I worry he may have missed the boat in terms of the very best Demetrius Andrade,” said Eddie Hearn to the DAZN Boxing Show, reacting to Demetrius Andrade’s less-than-stellar performance last weekend against fringe super middleweight contender Demond Nicholson on the Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis vs. Hector Luis Garcia card on Showtime PPV.

“I’m not saying he can’t beat those guys [top 168-pounders], but the knockdown, but I just feel like the knockdown, it probably was a knockdown, but he wasn’t really hurt, but he got caught a little bit, and I saw him get hurt by Liam Williams at 160 when they fought there.

“My worry about Demetrius is when he’s in a physical fight with a puncher, but they still have to get leather on him. What Demetrius does is Demetrius does the same thing every time.

“He comes out, looks like a train, like one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, and then he coasts, and then he sometimes finishes strong as well. Then he did the same thing on Saturday. But sometimes, when he boxed [Jason] Quigley, he did enough to get him out of there early.

“How many times did we see it against Luke Keeler and when he won the world title against [Walter] Kautondokwa and against [Maciej] Sulecki? All those opportunities. When we did the fight in Providence against Sulecki, he nearly got him out in the first or second round.

“That place was going wild. That was the kind of statement win that you kind of need. I do feel like as he gets a little bit older and gets a little more vulnerable, as we always see, fighters will be more willing to take a chance against him.  That’s exactly the same as Boots Ennis on Saturday night.

“All of a sudden, he boxed a guy [Karen Chukhadzhian] with a horrible style that was running. It was a good twelve rounds for Jaron Ennis, but people will say, ‘Okay, he gets hit a bit; maybe he’s not what I thought he was, so maybe I’ll fight him.’

“We see it all the time in boxing. Every time someone has a bad fight. Everyone thinks he’s a beast [until they have a bad performance]. Look at Edgar Berlanga. He’s knocking all these people out, steps up a level, and struggles, and everyone goes, ‘Actually, he’s not all that. I’ll fight him.’

“I think that could be happening with Demetrius Andrade. I actually think he’ll get a fight like that, whether that’s [Jermall] Charlo or whether that’s the winner of Plant- Dirrell. I think some will look at him and say, ‘I think I can walk through him.’ Maybe he did it on purpose,” said Hearn.

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