“My main goal right now is Xander Zayas,” said Ennis on DAZN’s Inside The Ring. “I’m not worried about nobody else right now. After I’m victorious on June 27 and become unified champion at 154, bring them on.”
The 28-year-old from Philadelphia has long been linked to the biggest names around the weight classes near him, but several routes failed to materialize. A bout against Vergil Ortiz Jr. had been discussed before Ortiz’s promotional dispute changed those plans.
Ennis said once that option disappeared, he told promoter Eddie Hearn to secure Zayas next.
“He ain’t choose to fight me. I told Eddie to go get him after negotiations with Ortiz fell through,” Ennis said. “I appreciate him for accepting this fight because he didn’t have to take this fight. He could have fought somebody else.”
Zayas, 23, enters unbeaten and already holding two belts, which makes the fight one of the biggest at 154 this year. It also gives Ennis the type of opponent critics said he needed after leaving welterweight.
Still, Ennis is looking beyond one night. He made clear he believes the division belongs to him if the leading names continue facing each other.
“I’m ready to take over the division one by one,” Ennis said. “I’m going to knock them down one by one and show the world why I’m the best. I will be undisputed at 154.”
We watched Ennis rot on the vine at 147 while the big names played musical chairs and held out for purses that simply didn’t exist for anyone not named Canelo or Crawford.
The move to 154 is supposed to be the great reset, but the economic reality hasn’t changed for Ennis. The “undisputed” dream usually stays a dream: the step-side tax and the promotional pride surcharge.
Eddie Hearn is great at selling the vision, but he isn’t exactly known for overpaying for titles. If the other champions in the division see Ennis as a high-risk, low-reward headache, they’ll slap a price tag on their belts that effectively prices him out of the market.
If Zayas loses his belts on June 27, he’s out of the picture. But the guys who actually hold the leverage, the ones with the other straps, aren’t going to do Hearn any favors. They know Ennis is a phenom, and phenoms have to pay a premium to get anyone into the ring with them.
If Ennis can’t get those unifications because the cold, hard cash isn’t there, he’s just going to be a 154-pound version of what he was at 147: a guy with a couple of belts and nobody to fight.
We saw this play out with the Crawford and Spence saga for years. If the money doesn’t make sense for the promoters, the “undisputed” talk is just a convenient marketing tool to sell a DAZN subscription.
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