The wildly talented welterweight prospect from Philadelphia Jaron Ennis (27-0 with 25 KOS) overpowered former IBF Light Welterweight champion Sergey Lipinets (16-2-1 with 12 KOs) in the Showtime main event Saturday night in Connecticut, at Mohegan Sun.
Facing the biggest challenge of his young career, Jaron Ennis aka Boots met the moment as if the moment always belonged to him.
And, you know what, let's ditch “prospect.” He's a full on contender, no debate….
Ennis coasted through the first two rounds, controlling the action with superior speed, power, and movement. Lipinets landed a couple of solid shots in the third, which Ennis ate like toast with jam, and then proceeded to spread jam all over Lipinets’ face and body with a series of power punches that moved the Russian fighter across the ring.
In the fourth, Ennis scored a knockdown that should have been ruled a slip. In the fifth, Ennis was strafing Lipinets on the ropes when Sergey tagged Ennis in the johnson in an effort to get Ennis off of him. It might have bought Lipinets the round, but that reprieve would be very temporary.
The sixth began competitively, as Lipinets was landing more blows than in the previous rounds, but Ennis just walked through them like papier-mâché, and when Ennis got his chance, he absolutely brutalized Lipinets with a right hook-straight left combo that made the Russian do a hop before crumpling to the ground—and staying there. The referee, Arthur Mercante Jr, didn’t give Lipinets the opportunity to decide if he wanted to see any more, and rightly not. Lipinets’ whole face is going to be a mouse tomorrow morning.
Ennis had three more inches of height, seven more inches of reach, more speed and more power than Lipinets, which meant Lipinets was going to have to get lucky. He did not.
Every now and then you see a guy in the ring who looks like he can do whatever he wants to do whenever he wants to do it (Errol Spence is a guy who comes to mind). As of tonight, that guy is Jaron “Boots” Ennis. I don’t know who Ennis is going to fight next—hell, I don’t know if he’s going to be able to find anyone who wants to fight him—but whoever that brave soul is, they are going to wish they could bring friends into the ring with them.