By the looks of things, domestic boxing in America is positioned for a renaissance given the bouts that are materializing for the new year.
On Saturday, unbeaten former unified welterweight champion Jaron “Boots” Ennis is set to take a ringside seat at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, to watch Vergil Ortiz Jnr meet former 154lbs title challenger Erickson Lubin for the WBC interim title. Their bout will air live on DAZN, also Ennis’ boxing home since he signed with Matchroom Boxing in 2024.
An individual familiar with the situation said Ennis, 35-0 (31 KOs), the current WBA interim 154lbs titlist, is insistent to send the message that he and Ortiz, 23-0 (21 KOs), need to be next – should Ortiz win this weekend.
That would be a sublime bout pitting two sub-30-year-old American punchers with a fervent hometown rivalry already built in (Ennis is from Philadelphia, Ortiz from the greater Dallas area). It would join the list of compelling 2026 spectacles that are also in the works or have been finalized.
DAZN’s U.S. calendar for the year ahead begins with a lightweight title fight between current IBF beltholder Raymond Muratalla and 2021 Olympic gold medalist Andy Cruz to Las Vegas. It’s a welcome addition to the schedule, given the lack of major title fights on American soil during the home stretch of 2025, outside of a December 6 Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) on Prime Video pay-per-view event.
Riyadh Season has claimed a stacked card of American talent on November 22, along with a Japan vs. Mexico modeled show on December 27 topped by undisputed junior-featherweight champion Naoya Inoue.
As Saudi Arabia’s boxing financier Turki Alalshikh has aligned with UFC CEO/President Dana White to support the new Zuffa Boxing promotion that will have its bouts streamed on Paramount+, competing American promoters are thus far positioning to keep their bouts at home in early 2026.
An individual familiar with negotiations told BoxingScene Wednesday that it’s “imminent” that Alalshikh himself is bringing his third fight card to New York in less than nine months’ time. As reported earlier by BoxingScene, the event is expected to be headlined by Teofimo Lopez’s WBO 140lbs championship defense against three-division titlist Shakur Stevenson in late January.
Like Ennis-Ortiz, Lopez-Stevenson offers a scintillating match between Brooklyn’s gifted, hard-hitting Lopez and Newark, New Jersey’s supremely skilled and unbeaten Stevenson.
Both fighters are 28 and formerly fought for promoter Top Rank.
Top Rank, still operating without a major broadcast deal, will send WBO 130lbs titleholder Emanuel Navarrete, 39-2-1 (32 KOs), to meet Matchroom’s Mexican countryman and IBF champion Eduardo “Sugar” Nunez, 29-1 (27 KOs), atop a March 7 DAZN show from Mortgage Market Center in Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix flexed itself as one of the nation’s premier fight towns by staging bouts earlier this decade featuring Navarrete, former two-division titlist Oscar Valdez and reigning 115lbs champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez. The attractive fight city went without a major event this year, prompting one writer to chime in when Rodriguez and WBC 175lbs title claimant David Benavidez were taken to Saudi Arabia later this month that “they picked the wrong desert.”
PBC is also working on an early 2026 Las Vegas bout, a welterweight title fight between its WBC champion Mario Barrios Jnr of Texas and the popular contender Ryan Garcia of Southern California.
Originally targeted for Las Vegas in the early spring was a rematch of the most lucrative prizefight in history, with unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jnr and eight-division champion Manny Pacquiao squaring off again more than ten years after their 2015 match that Mayweather won by unanimous decision.
Yet, an official familiar with the situation told BoxingScene Wednesday that Mayweather might be locked into an exhibition fight he previously committed to versus former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
