Jaron “Boots” Ennis (36-0, 32 KOs) stopped Xander Zayas (23-1, 13 KOs) within the seventh spherical on Saturday at Barclays Heart in Brooklyn, taking the WBA and WBO junior middleweight titles and handing the Puerto Rican the primary defeat of his profession.
Referee Harvey Dock waved off the competition at 1:49 of the seventh spherical after Zayas went down for the third time. Ennis, a former unified welterweight champion, turns into a titleholder in a second weight class. Zayas had been the game’s youngest male unified champion getting into the bout.
How the combat unfolded
Ennis switched to a southpaw stance halfway by means of the opening spherical and dropped Zayas with a straight left after a sequence of pictures, scoring the primary knockdown of Zayas’ skilled profession. He managed the early rounds behind his jab and combos.
Zayas turned the combat round within the third, touchdown a sequence of proper fingers that harm Ennis and drew a roar from a closely pro-Zayas crowd. The exchanges continued into the fourth, with Zayas working the physique and Ennis selecting to commerce relatively than maintain and field. A number of retailers, together with ESPN, described the third as a Spherical of the 12 months candidate.
Ennis regained management within the fifth, placing Zayas down a second time with a proper hand. He closed the present within the seventh, forcing Zayas to take a knee with a physique shot earlier than the nook accepted the stoppage.
Publish-fight response
“It feels great,” Ennis stated. He graded his personal efficiency harshly, noting the difficulty he bumped into within the center rounds. “I used to be being lazy inside, that’s me, I’ve to sharpen that up. I might give myself a ‘C.’”
Requested about his subsequent transfer, Ennis pointed to the remainder of the division. “Whoever [promoter] Eddie [Hearn] needs, that’s who we’re going to get subsequent,” he stated. “I’m right here to be undisputed on this weight class so it doesn’t matter who’s subsequent as a result of I’ll combat all of them.”
Zayas declined to make excuses in defeat. “I’m not making any excuses tonight. He gained like a champion,” he stated. He additionally defended his nook’s determination to cease the combat. “They’re right here to let me reside one other day tomorrow. I knew it was the fitting determination in the event that they made it as a result of it was time.”
Terence Crawford, who beforehand held titles at each welterweight and junior middleweight and retired in 2025, watched the bout and supplied a short response on social media, declining to elaborate on his evaluation.
Undercard outcomes
Emiliano Vargas (18-0, 15 KOs) stopped Bryce Mills (22-2, 9 KOs) within the fourth spherical to retain his NABF, WBC USA Silver and WBO Latino junior welterweight titles. Britain’s Ben Whittaker (12-0-1, 9 KOs) wanted simply over two minutes to cease Richard Rivera (27-2, 20 KOs) within the second spherical, retaining the WBC Silver gentle heavyweight title.
