Jaron Ennis vs Vergil Ortiz negotiations have collapsed.
The pair were expected to meet in Saudi Arabia in February, but last minute issues over the weight class has seemingly ended any hope of seeing the fight.
Ennis is the current IBF welterweight champion, and was expected to move up to 154lbs to challenge Ortiz for his WBC interim super-welterweight title.
Eddie Hearn, who promotes Ennis, spoke about the negotiations and said that ‘Boots’ would have to vacate his title at 147lbs in order to take the fight.
“We received an offer about three days ago for the fight at 147, not from us, not us trying to get it at 147, that was how it was written in the offer to us.
We took it back to Jaron, obviously that was fine with us, we took it back to them to say ‘yes, we’ll accept, but are you sure this is at 147?’. They went away, they came back and said ‘no, we’ve spoken to Golden Boy, sorry it will at 154, you’ve got to vacate your title’. This is a big decision we’ll have to go back.
On Thanksgiving we were asked to make a decision and his answer was ‘I just don’t know, I’m not ready to make a decision if I’m going to vacate my belt’. And that’s it.”
One man who doesn’t believe those claims is former world champion Tim Bradley, who said on his YouTube channel that he believes that Ennis could keep hold of hit title but he’s simply ducking Ortiz.
“That’s duck soup at its finest. That’s the way you do it when you want to duck somebody. When you change your mind and don’t believe that you’re that damn good. This is a clear indicator right here that he doesn’t want no smoke with anybody. This is a perfect match-up for him at 154lbs against a smaller guy, not a big guy.
All you have to do is talk to the sanctioning body and tell them ‘I want to go 154 and fight Vergil. Can I maintain my belt at 147lbs.’ They would say yes as long as you pay the sanctioning fee.
He’s not as bad as you think he is. This isn’t a good look for Boots and his team.”
