Jaron “Boots” Ennis pitches shoutout as he unifies the welterweight titles

Jaron “Boots” Ennis (34-0, 30 KO) put on a masterful performance en route to a sixth-round TKO to unify the IBF and WBA welterweight titles Saturday night in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was a showdown between ESPN's top two welterweights. 

Ennis used a tactful approach by working the body by the sixth round; there was nothing that Stanionis (15-1, 9 KOs) could do. Ennis kept landing the jab and using angles to connect to the body. He hit Stanionis with a flurry of body punches that forced Stanionis to take a knee. Stanionus whose wife was in labor with his first child trainer Marvin Samodio decided to stop the fight to mitigate the damage taken to his fighter. 

"I feel like I was just getting in my groove, started getting loose," Ennis said after the fight. "I had fun, and my dad told me, 'Just keep pressing, you're going to stop him.' And what's crazy was I had a dream I was going to stop him just like this in the seventh round. It came true."

Ennis has won six of his past eight fights by stoppage, including KO wins over Sergey Lipinets, Thomas Dulorme, Roiman Villa and David Avanesyan. With the win Ennis took Stanionis WBA "regular" welterweight championship belt. Stanionis was elevated to full champion when Terence Crawford moved up to junior middleweight to face Israil Madrimov in August 2024. Stanionis didn't fight in 2023 after a fight against Vergil Ortiz Jr. was postponed multiple times. Ennis now can look to wipe out the division he has two more champions to beat to make that dream come true in Brian Norman Jr. and Mario Barrios. 

"I'm gonna enjoy my victory, enjoy these belts," Ennis said about his future. "I'll talk to the team and we're going to see what's next."

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