Matchroom Boxing hosted an evening of pugilism in
Philadelphia on Saturday that featured many of their top American boxers. Four
were victorious and one would suffer his first defeat. There's a lot to
dissect from these performances, so let's jump right in!
Boots vs. Karen
Jaron "Boots" Ennis fought a mandatory defense,
and rematch, against Karen Chukhadzhian. The two first met in January 2023, which resulted in a one-sided unanimous decision win for Ennis. The most notable aspect
of the fight was that Karen was able to take Boots the distance. In the
interim, Karen had done very little to warrant becoming a mandatory challenger
for Boots' welterweight title, yet here they were. Would the rematch be any
different?
Actually, it was. Karen was far more aggressive on Saturday, spending significant portions of the fight on his front foot. When they fought last year, Karen was happy to play it safe on the outside, but in the rematch, he was far feistier.
Boots started off well and really focused on commanding the action with his jab. But as the rounds started to pile up, the same criticisms of Boots in past fights manifested: he sacrificed too much defense for offense, he was loading up on big shots for a knockout, and in a new twist, it looked as if the physicality of the fight was taking a bit of a toll on him (there was a lot of holding and grappling; Karen was deducted a point for holding).
Boots did score a knockdown in the fifth from a barrage of
power punches and he landed plenty of eye-catching shots throughout the fight.
To my eyes, the fight was never in doubt for him, but Karen was far from
intimidated. During several portions of the back-half of the fight, Karen
connected with blistering right hands and left hooks. Although not a puncher, these
were clean and impressive shots that exposed Boots' defensive shortcomings.
Boots was so concerned with getting the knockout that he wasn't interested in defending
what was coming back at him. As a result, he tasted a lot of leather. Boots did win a unanimous decision (119-108, 117-110 and 116-111), but it was far from a clean victory.
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| Photo courtesy of Matchroom Boxing |
As I've stated in a previous column about Boots, he might happen to have an incredible chin, so we can't say with certainly that he is a knockout waiting to happen. But at the very least, Karen won three and four rounds on two scorecards. That was not an accident of judges being overly generous. The point of boxing is to win, and Boots' porous defense is making it harder for him to be victorious. Boots remains an offensive dynamo, but there are two sides to the sport.
Boots didn't seem thrilled by his performance in the
aftermath of the fight. I think that now he realizes the margins are much
thinner at the top levels of boxing. What worked stopping lesser fighters is no
longer the same. This is a pivotal moment in his career. Does he want to be a
fun action fighter or does he aspire to something more, like greatness? If it's
the latter, then there's a lot of work to be done.
Bam vs. Guevara
Every now and then, you see something so sublime in boxing
that you have to check a replay to make sure that your eyes didn't deceive you.
In the third round Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez trapped Pedro Guevara in
a corner and then Guevara just folded to the canvas in an instant, and the fight was over. What was the
shot that landed? What was so forceful? Did Bam slip in a quick uppercut?
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| Photo courtesy of Matchroom Boxing |
Ringside, a number of the media initially thought that it was a right uppercut that did the damage, which would have been impressive in that it wasn't Bam's dominant back hand, the left. But what actually happened was even more breathtaking. With Guevara right in front of him along the ropes, Bam shifted his weight and momentarily went orthodox to land the right uppercut from that position. It was the backhand, but it was now the right hand from the orthodox stance. In real time, this switch was practically imperceptible, but Bam was so effortless and fluid with his movement. It's another example of Bam having elite footwork in the pocket.
Guevara was no mug. He had always gone the distance before.
His losses had all been by split or majority decision. He has been a rugged
contender. And here he was wiped out in the third round. This was next-level
stuff by Bam, who was making a junior bantamweight title defense. And however seasoned Guevara might have been, he did not
anticipate Bam's final uppercut, nor did he see it coming. He was outfought and outthought by a master boxer. It was
thrilling stuff.
Ford vs. Gonzalez
Raymond Ford made his junior lightweight debut on Saturday
against a credible B-level fighter in Orlando Gonzalez. What amazed me about
Ford's performance was how his style has morphed from his early years in the sport. During his development
fights, he was a classic boxer who used his legs and hand speed. He was not a
big puncher and if anything, he was accused of over-moving at times and not
sitting down on his shots.
But something changed with Ford over 2024. In March he was
being outboxed by Otabek Kholmatov and Ford made a bold decision to take the
fight on the inside. He wound up scoring a memorable 12th-round stoppage to win
a world featherweight title. In June, he was being outworked by pressure
fighter Nick Ball in the first half of their fight and yet it was Ford who
became the pressure fighter in the second half. Although he dropped a razor-thin split decision in that fight, the newfound belief in his inside fighting
and power was evident.
On Saturday he fought Gonzalez as a walk-down power puncher.
There was little of the lateral movement or fancy footwork from Ford's earlier
career. Instead, Ford was coming in the front door all night behind bombs. He
landed two picture-perfect knockdowns with right hooks in the second and eighth
rounds. The lead hook in the eighth was so spectacular that I had to resist the
urge to stand up and applaud. The knockdown was that sublime. That hook so damaged Gonzalez that he spent
the rest of the fight running and holding. He was no longer interested in
engaging.
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| Photo courtesy of Matchroom Boxing |
Ford wound up winning by a virtual shutout on the cards. I thought that his gas tank looked a little better than it had in previous fights. Although his effort may not have been full-throttle every round, he was still piling up points. More impressively, he looked very comfortable with his style, like he had finally found himself in the ring. He may not be a true one-punch knockout guy, but he has enough power and hand speed to trouble anyone at 130 lbs.
Coe vs. Gallegos
If you ever want to watch a fight where it all goes wrong
for a top prospect, you could start here. Khalil Coe was on the fast track at
light heavyweight and entered Saturday's fight at 9-0-1 with seven knockouts.
In his last three fights, he was a destroyer, ending each bout within two rounds.
From the opening bell, Coe looked fresh. He had the power
and speed advantage over Manuel Gallegos, who had not fought in over a year. In Gallegos' last fight, he was knocked out by Diego Pacheco in four rounds at super
middleweight. All of this seemed to be set up to make Coe look good.
Coe was landing some hellacious shots early, but then a
funny thing happened: Gallegos wouldn't go down. And then he kept firing back.
Hitting Coe with crisp counter right hands and left hooks to the body, Gallegos
seemed to be enjoying the slugfest.
Instead of making adjustments, Coe doubled down on going to
war. How was this guy still here? I will try even harder to stop him. But
Gallegos kept pressing forward and dropped Coe with a left hook to the body in
the fifth. Coe came up firing, which galvanized the crowd. Both exchanged huge
shots, but it looked like Coe got the worst of it.
By the sixth, Coe's legs didn't look like they once did. And
Gallegos took control of the fight. A flurry of power punches dropped Coe in
the seventh. Additional power punches dropped Coe in the eighth. And Coe was
now a shell of himself. Nobody seemed interested in stopping the fight even
though Coe was taking a vicious beating. A final left hook to the body
dropped Coe in the ninth and the ref finally waved the fight off.
This fight didn't have to play out the way it did. Although there was no guarantee that Coe would have won if he had chosen to box more and not go
to war, he certainly would have had more of a chance. He had been a decorated amateur boxer after all. It wasn't always about power with him. But Coe wound up playing into Gallegos' hands. Coe was
certain he would win a war of power punching.
It was this belief, and a lack of respect for his opponent,
that led to his demise. Coe could have tried to make Gallegos earn it the hard
way, but there Coe was landing a huge shot and just staying right in the
pocket, expecting Gonzalez to hit the canvas, and completely surprised when
Gonzalez fired off a blazing counter. This pattern played out throughout the fight. Like Boots' performance, it was an example of a fighter
who had developed bad habits. Coe believed too much in his power and not enough
in what his opponent could do. He paid the price.
Williams vs. Garrido
Austin "Ammo" Williams suffered a physically
devastating defeat in his last fight against Hamzah Sheeraz, where he was
dropped in the 10th and stopped in the 11th. For his comeback fight, he
was matched up against little-known Gian Garrido, a fighter who had recently
been knocked out in a six-rounder. This was supposed to be a get-well
fight for Williams. But, if we are being honest, Ammo... didn't look too well.
The ledger will show that Williams won Saturday's fight by fifth-round stoppage, and in truth, his power punching really came alive during that round. But prior to that, he looked listless. His legs were ponderous. He struggled to put punches together and at points Garrido was much quicker. At the end, Williams' sharper punching was the difference, but he looked far from a recent middleweight title challenger.
Williams may need to take some time out of the ring to get back to his best. Saturday
was not an issue of ring rust or inactivity. Sometimes a fighter just doesn't
look right and I hope that his team was watching his performance closely. He
needs a break.
***
Overall, it was a terrific night at the fights, with much revealed about these boxers. From the frustrating to the sublime, there was so much to absorb, so much talent to watch of all varieties, so much intrigue. It was a wonderful night at the fights, and I was as happy as ever to experience it.
