Derek Ennis, the father-coach of American top welterweight prospect Jaron Ennis (29-0, 27 KOs), praised his son on the eve of the fight for the vacant IBF interim belt with Ukrainian Karen Chukhadzhyan. The fight will take place on January 7 in Washington (USA).
Ennis Sr. once again
declaredthat they are primarily interested in titles, and not specific fighters: “If you don’t want to fight, it’s up to you. But then release the titles. The same Errol Spence is obliged to fight Jaron within 120 days. If he refuses, he will be stripped of his IBF belt. It’s simple.”
Experts speculate that Ennis’ career could go much the same way as that of his shunned compatriot Demetrius Endred. The father-coach thinks differently: “I know for sure that this will not happen. For the reason that Jaron is at the top of the rankings. Sooner or later they will have to give him a fight. After all, we tried to agree on a fight for the WBA World belt with Eimantas Stanionis, but somehow Virgil Ortiz got ahead of us.
The father-trainer claims that his son cannot reach his full potential at 66.7 kg: “We will take the title here, and then rise higher. We are not going to stay for long, because Jaron is growing, getting bigger and stronger. He is only now gradually gaining the power of an adult uncle. Yes, he knocked out almost all his opponents, but he still didn’t really have the same power of an adult uncle. Imagine what a monster he will be when he gets it. He’s only 25 years old after all. You know, speed kills, it’s true. But it’s also true that Jaron doesn’t invest in punches. But he can do it. Not everyone paid attention to its accuracy.”
Derek talks about his son: “In the ring, he turns into an animal, into some kind of animal. He has a killer instinct. And outside the ring, the little one is the coolest dude in the whole world. To be honest, I raised all my sons like that (two older brothers also boxed before). But Jaron is much more responsible about boxing. The rest of the sons spent too much time on girls and all sorts of parties. It seems that only he was interested in the world title. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of the title from his brothers.”
On why Jaron has such an unusual boxing style: “At first I trained him to box in the left-handed stance. And only then returned to right-handedness. So right now, as the fight progresses, he switches stances automatically.”
Ennis said yesterday that he does not know if he can knock out Ukrainian Chukhadzhyan. He doesn’t worry about the fact that top opponents are ignoring him so far: “It’s worse for them.” Jaron recently challenged Crawford and then admitted that he wanted another opponent.