Derek Chisora: The Gatekeeper's Toolbox

In Derek Chisora's 17-year professional career, he has amassed a 35-13 record, not the type of official tally that leads to Canastota. He has never won a world title and has been stopped four times. But Chisora has played an essential role in the heavyweight division: the ultimate gatekeeper.  

Consider this: Not one of the fighters that Chisora has beaten has won a legitimate world title. And it gets even more specific: In two fights that he could have and perhaps should have won (against Robert Helenius and the first match with Dillian Whyte), neither of those two opponents would go on to be successful at winning a world title either.  

He has his fair share of wins over fighters who have been top-20 heavyweights, including David Price, Artur Szpilka, Gerald Washington, Kubrat Pulev, Carlos Takam and Malik Scott. Ultimately, if Chisora beats you, you don't really have the goods.  

Last Saturday, Chisora had perhaps the best win of his career (at the age of 40!), against top-ten ranked Joe Joyce. Like many of Chisora's fights, the Joyce bout was an all-out war. A Chisora late surge, including a knockdown in the ninth round, helped secure the victory.  

Chisora after the Joyce victory
Photo courtesy of Queensberry Promotions

Now it's important not to oversell Chisora. He has always struggled against technicians and his defense has left a lot to be desired. He's had an inconsistent gas tank and he hasn't always taken his training camps seriously. As a shorter fighter in the heavyweight division (6'1"), he almost always has a height disadvantage and while he has a couple of tricks to help close that gap, he often does start out behind the eight ball in that an opponent who can use his reach will have an immediate advantage.  

However, Chisora has remained more than serviceable in the heavyweight division because of three main factors, two of which are unique in the weight class, and another one which is a skill that few in the entire sport have mastered.  

As far back as 2011, Chisora featured a unique weapon in the heavyweight division. Facing 6'6" undefeated uber-prospect Robert Helenius, Chisora landed a looping overhand right repeatedly. The whipping shot routinely caught Helenius unaware and hurt him multiple times throughout the fight. Chisora's looping right helped close the height and reach gap. Frankly, Chisora made Helenius look ordinary that night. 

But Helenius wound up winning the fight in one of the decade's worst robberies. However, Helenius' luster was never the same. Whatever aura or intimidation factor he had was now gone.   

Chisora's constant pressure was another attribute that caused Helenius significant problems. Like many heavyweights of that era, Helenius wanted space to land his power shots, and Chisora was most unobliging in that area. Chisora's pressure nuked Helenius' game plan and the Nordic Nightmare never looked comfortable in the fight.  

Flash forward to 2020 and Chisora was still having success as a pressure fighter, running Oleksandr Usyk very close in a fascinating 12-round fight. Usyk could do little more than cover up or be evasive in the first few rounds of their fight. And to this day, Chisora might be the only fighter to beat Usyk in the championship rounds. To be fair, the fight was scored correctly. Usyk deserved the win, but to my eyes, he has never had a closer fight in the heavyweight division, and that includes his battles with Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury.  

There's also a third tool that Chisora possesses which makes him formidable: he knows how to fight off the ropes. In 2018, Chisora fought a ferocious war against Carlos Takam. It was my Fight of the Year. In that battle, Chisora and Takam took turns teeing off on the other against the ropes. And while Takam often was the one unloading volume with Chisora with his back on the ropes, it was Chisora's crafty counters off the ropes that continued to do the most damage. It was a nasty war of attrition that Chisora eventually won with a knockout in the eighth round.  

In the two fights with Whyte, Chisora again had lots of success with his back on the ropes. He knows how to absorb shorts, to deflect them and to find angles to land hard counters. He could have won the first Whyte fight and I had him up in the second before he was knocked out in the 11th. This is when many thought that Whyte was championship material. He was supposed to be levels about Chisora, but Chisora kept cracking him.  

Against Joyce on Saturday, Chisora showcased his three main attributes. Early in the fight, he consistently found holes in Joyce's defense with his looping counter right hand. He also scored with many impressive left hooks early in the fight. He had moments where he pressured effectively against Joyce. But ultimately, what won Chisora the fight was his work off the ropes late in the fight. With his back against the ropes in the ninth round, Chisora unfurled a perfect counter right hand that landed squarely on Joyce's chin, knocking him to the canvas. It was a huge momentum swing in the fight. And in the tenth round, Chisora again had glory with his back on the ropes, ultimately landing the more telling blows in the round. His work in the last few rounds was enough to earn the victory in a vicious battle.  

***

I'm sure that in the next 12-18 months Chisora will formally retire. He's been in all sorts of wars. He's taken ridiculous punishment, even in fights that he's won. He will be remembered as one of the best B-sides of his era and a fighter who helped pack arenas in London and Manchester. 

The fans have always loved him. Walking into "Hotel California," often hiding his face behind a bandana, giving his all in the ring, he has left a legacy. He was never a prized amateur. He was served up to lose against Helenius, Vitali Klitschko, Whyte, Parker, Fury, and Joyce, but he often over-performed. He literally has left it all in the ring.  

For the sake of the sport, I wish that Chisora would consider working with younger fighters after his retirement. He has a lot to offer. He could provide wonderful advice on how to deal with being the underdog, the B-side. But even more important, he has skills that need to be passed down to the next generation. Why does that looping right hand land on almost every opponent? He obviously throws the punch with a specific torque and deception that makes it hard to defend. I would hate it if that looping right hand went out of circulation. What a weapon against the right opponent!  

Chisora could also write a book on how to fight off the ropes, a skill that seems completely lost in modern boxing. I could probably count on one hand the number of boxers who are truly sufficient at this part of the sport. So many try; almost all fail. Clearly, Chisora has accumulated knowledge in this area that could be vital to anyone willing to listen, and this includes trainers as well.   

As for pressure fighting, it looks like that is finally coming back into vogue in the heavyweight division. There were generations of heavyweights infatuated with "fighting tall" and keeping distance. But the heavyweight division didn't use to be that way. Fighters like Frazier and Foreman and Tyson and Holyfield would come right at an opponent. It made for thrilling viewing, but even more importantly, those fighters all reached the mountaintop. There's no law that says fighting tall has to be the way to do it.  

Thankfully, youngsters like Richard Torrez and Moses Itauma understand that their pressure style mixed with hand speed and power can be a nightmare to deal with. Perhaps the best fighter on the planet, Usyk, had real trouble with Chisora's pressure. 

As Chisora gets closer to the sunset of his career, we should remember that fights are won in the ring. A motivated "opponent" with tools can cause all sorts of problems against supposedly better fighters. Chisora was so often brought in to play a role: sell tickets and lose heroically. And on a few occasions, he was able to tear up the script and end some dreams. Few gatekeepers ever achieve his level of prominence or popularity, but it has been well earned. On Saturday, after defeating Joyce, he took the microphone and asked his fans to cheer him on with one more song. It was the glory. And there was nothing that could take that away from him. 

Adam Abramowitz is the founder and head writer of saturdaynightboxing.com. 

He's a contributing writer for Ring Magazine, a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Panel, the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and the Boxing Writers Association of America.

Email: saturdaynightboxing@hotmail.com

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Opinions and Observations: Ennis-Avanesyan

Like many sports, boxing involves the combination of offense and defense. Although both elements are necessary for victory, they need not be equally distributed to win. Think about the times that a team or an individual has so much offensive firepower that the opposition just can't match them. And it works the other way too. Defensive masters can be so adept that they can neutralize whatever the opponent brings. 

Jaron "Boots" Ennis is to the left of the offense/defense continuum in boxing. His offense is so advanced, so fluid and so spiteful that it more than covers up for his defensive shortcomings. To this point in his career, he is 32-0 with 29 KOs. But his dominance is even more comprehensive than that; he barely loses rounds. Contrast Ennis with Terence Crawford, a fighter to whom Ennis is frequently compared. Crawford has lost his fair share of rounds in fights. He doesn't mind giving an opponent a couple of early rounds while he figures out the openings. He's had to come up with knockouts in close fights. 

Boots goes about his business differently. He attacks opponents from the opening bell. Featuring a much higher volume than Crawford and a willingness to mix it up, Boots welcomes a firefight. He's not trying to defuse a conflagration. He wants the proceedings to get a little ragged and nasty. He knows that few can compete with his blistering offensive arsenal. 

Boots Ennis (left) in full flow
Photo courtesy of Amanda Westcott/Matchroom Boxing

But Boots gets hit in a way that is concerning. Whether it's Thomas Dulorme, Sergey Lipinets or now David Avanesyan, Boots has given his opponents the type of free shots that create a degree of peril in his performances. Make no mistake: it's not that he gets hit; everyone gets hit. It's how he gets hit. 

Throughout portions of the fourth and fifth rounds in Saturday's fight, Boots was slugging it out with Avanesyan in close range, landing spectacular combinations and power shots. Yet after throwing, his hands were nowhere near his head, leaving himself unguarded for Avanesyan's return counters. And Avanesyan connected with some impressive straight rights and left hooks. Boots took them all and took them well. And it should be noted that Avanesyan is not some light-hitting foe. But it wasn't a stray shot or two for Avanesyan during the fight. He landed his best shots at an unprotected target.

To this point in his career, Boots has relied on his chin during firefights instead of defensive technique. He has already taken some big bombs in his career, but they haven't dissuaded him from continuing his offensive onslaughts. However, I can't say it's the best long-term strategy. 

But let's also offer up the possibility that Boots may happen to have a great beard. We've seen several fighters with immovable chins. Gennadiy Golovkin could take anyone's punches. Canelo can as well (not that he is in the business of giving away free shots). Maybe Boots will fit into this category.

Let's return to Crawford, who more closely resembles Ennis than do Golovkin or Canelo. Terence has had his own defensive issues in some of his fights. I wouldn't call him a defensive savant, especially when in the orthodox position, but it's worth pointing out that Crawford has yet to lose a fight. What I'm getting at here is that a potential weakness is not the same as a real weakness. So, I think it's important to note the obvious, that Boots' can be gotten to, but it's not necessarily a tragic flaw at this point...as long as he can take the shots. 

However, let's also not lose the forest through the trees. The offensive display that Boots put forward on Saturday was majestic. By the second round, he had already dominated Avanesyan with his jab from the orthodox stance and violent right hooks out of the southpaw stance. By the end of the second, Avanesyan's left flank was already reddened by the hooks to the body. In addition, a significant knot arose on Avanesyan's face, more evidence of Boots' power punching success. 

Boots with his belt after the victory
Photo courtesy of Amanda Westcott/Matchroom Boxing

So many fighters are programmed with their combinations. How about a left hook to the body and right hand to the head? How about the jab, straight right and the left hook? These sequences have been drilled into fighters since they were kids, and they throw them like they have mastered a particular test. 

But Boots isn't playing that game. His combinations come from a sort of improvisatory genius that combines athletic mastery, sterling punch technique, creativity, supreme speed, and opportunism. I doubt that Boots knows what he's going to throw until the second he unleashes a combo. I don't think he says to himself "left hook, left hook." He sees an opening and then unfurls a combination that could incorporate any of his punches at a given time. He always has everything in his arsenal ready to go. 

And he's not burdened by orthodoxy. How about a double rear uppercut followed by a rear hook? How about a rear uppercut followed by a looping back hand (this was the combination that floored Avanesyan in the fifth)? How about a straight right hand, a left uppercut to the head and a left hook to the body? A Boots opponent has no idea what's coming and consequently can't get his defense aligned to stop the oncoming foray. 

Saturday's crowd in Philadelphia literally oohed and aahed multiple times a round during Boots' combinations. And Philadelphia boxing fans are not easily impressed. They have seen champions and talents of all stripes. Yet there Boots was putting together combinations of beauty and wonder. He had them eating out of the palm of his hand; they were enraptured.

The fight was stopped after the fifth round as Avanesyan sustained damage to his jaw and had gotten beaten up to the body. Ennis retained his welterweight title, but Avanesyan played his role well. After the fight, Boots admitted that he was a little rusty and wasn't pleased with all aspects of his performance. Avanesyan gave Boots things to think about, to realize that his performance was insufficient, and there haven't been too many of Boots' opponents where that has been the case. 

The Boots train is now in full swing. Armed with a new promotional deal with Matchroom, a division at welterweight that sees few legitimate threats, and now a loyal home following that can generate real box office, Boots can continue to mow down willing opponents in front of a big home crowds for good money. He's in the sweet spot. 

But the risks are there. And although I have mentioned a couple of outliers, the fighters who can remain at the elite level while giving away free shots are few. In the end, Boots' offense might be so good that my concerns may be moot. Or maybe not. But I know one thing: we'll all be watching to find out. The Boots Ennis Show is unmissable. 

Adam Abramowitz is the founder and head writer of saturdaynightboxing.com. 

He's a contributing writer for Ring Magazine, a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Panel, the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and the Boxing Writers Association of America.

Email: saturdaynightboxing@hotmail.com

snboxing on twitter. SN Boxing on Facebook  

Boots Ennis Feature for Ring Magazine

I wrote a feature on uber-talent Jaron "Boots" Ennis for Ring Magazine. Ennis takes on David Avanesyan on Saturday, making the first defense of his welterweight title. It will be a homecoming fight for Ennis, his first bout in Philadelphia in over five years. To read the article, click here.

Adam Abramowitz is the founder and head writer of saturdaynightboxing.com. 

He's a contributing writer for Ring Magazine, a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Panel, the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and the Boxing Writers Association of America.

Email: saturdaynightboxing@hotmail.com

snboxing on twitter. SN Boxing on Facebook