Jaron Ennis has been ordered to defend his IBF title in his next outing against an opponent he faced just three fights ago.
‘Boots’ is one of the rising stars of the sport and has quickly filled the void at welterweight that was created when Errol Spence Jr and pound-for-pound star Terence Crawford moved up to 154lbs.
Although Ennis has called out Crawford before, he’s made it clear his immediate aim is to capture all the belts at 147 and then move up to face ‘Bud’.
Before securing any more titles, the IBF has ruled that the 27-year-old will have to face its mandatory next – Karen Chukhadzhian.
In an interview with Boxing News, Ennis’ promoter Eddie Hearn broke the news and admitted his frustration. He also revealed they had made an offer for a unification fight against WBC champion Marios Barrios.
“I want to make one thing clear, I heard some comments about Jaron Ennis, the mandatory has been called and I’m not over the moon about it because it’s a good fighter in Karen Chukhadzhian but it’s someone that he’s boxed before. There is nothing we can do in terms of the mandatory that has been called but we want to make the biggest fights out there. It’s frustrating, if it’s a fight that has to be ticked off quickly well we’ll do it.
We want big fights for Jaron Ennis. The plan for ‘Boots’, unquestionably, is to be in unification fights, I’ve made a substantial offer to Marios Barrios to fight Jaron Ennis, let’s see what he says.”
Hearn will hope that Ennis can make short work of Chukhadzhian and move onto the bigger fights in the division.
