Jaron “Boots” Ennis made quick work of Custio Clayton in tonight’s IBF welterweight eliminator, stopping the Canadian former Olympian in the second round of their Showtime co-feature tonight on the Charlo vs Castano 2 card.
After his win, Ennis (29-0, 27 KO) called out an in-attendance Errol Spence Jr, who of course has the IBF belt among the three he holds at 147 lbs, along with the WBC and WBA.
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The 24-year-old Ennis just continues to impress, marching through every solid opponent he’s given on his way to trying to get the big fight he badly desires. Clayton (19-1-1, 12 KO) is by no means a bad fighter, and if you watch what happened here as opposed to, say, what had just got done happening on DAZN not long before, you can see the difference between a fight that became a mismatch in impressive fashion for a winner, and a fight that was always just a pure mismatch and kind of ridiculous to watch play out.
The shot that put Clayton down and ended the fight in round two was borderline to the back of the head, but not on purpose, as it happened with Clayton ducking down, but judge it for yourself:
“He leaned down and I just threw an overhand,” Ennis said while watching the replay. “I thought he was gonna get up. He’s durable, a tough guy. Nobody’s ever stopped him.”
“Anybody right now can get it right now, but I’m the IBF No. 1 contender, and I think Mr. Big Fish is here himself (Spence), so it’s time to go fishing,” Ennis said, to which Spence was shown smiling slightly.
Hopefully, Ennis will get the big fight he craves sooner or later, but it would also be a lie to say the the boxing world wants to see him against Spence before we finally get Spence against Terence Crawford.
Kevin Gonzalez UD-10 Emanuel Rivera
Scores were 96-94, 97-93, and 98-92. Bad Left Hook had two even cards, 95-95, getting there via slightly different routes. But without meaning to speak for Wil, I’d say that if I absolutely had to pick a winner, I’d have also gone with Gonzalez. I gave Rivera a couple rounds I thought easily could have gone to Gonzalez, and I think up to 97-93 in his favor is fair. 98-92 a bit wide for my tastes.
Gonzalez (25-0-1, 13 KO) keeps his “0” and moves forward in the 122 lb division. The 24-year-old “El Chacal” was making his U.S. debut here, while the 32-year-old Rivera (19-3, 12 KO) loses for the first time since coming back to boxing in 2021, after a layoff following a controversial decision loss to Nate Green in 2017, which was the second lengthy layoff of his career.
This was competitive throughout, good action, lots of punches thrown, one to check out if you missed it live. Gonzalez is in a good spot with PBC in this division, they have some fighters including Stephen Fulton Jr and Danny Roman, of course, who will fight for Fulton’s two belts in a June 4 Showtime main event.