PHILADELPHIA – Jaron Ennis must have had a feeling how this fight would go, as he chose The Undertaker’s wrestling theme as the song to accompany his walk from the dressing room into the tunnel at the Wells Fargo Center. The ominous bell tolling that echoed through the arena was a sign of what was to come in just a matter of moments.
“Boots” Ennis needed just 1 minute and 58 seconds to finish off the lightly regarded Uisma Lima on Saturday night to win the WBA interim junior middleweight title in what was the former unified welterweight champion’s official debut in the 154lbs division.
“I already knew,” Ennis said when asked postfight if he was surprised how strong he was after moving up. “I felt like the more I go up, the stronger I was gonna get. And I was fighting at 47 almost my whole professional career. I started at 41, so I was that small for a long time. So it was finally, like, it was time to go.”
Ennis, now 35-0 (31 KOs), took a couple of seconds to take a look at his Angola-born, Portugal-based opponent, firing a few half-hearted jabs to test the southpaw Lima’s reactions. Then, perhaps sensing it was time to wrap things up, Ennis switched southpaw, sneaking in a left uppercut that rocked Lima, followed by two more punches that put the 32-year-old Lima on his back.
Lima beat the count, but he was clearly in no position to defend himself once on his feet, as another flurry put him back down almost immediately. Lima once again made it to his feet, but he found himself stumbling into a neutral corner, where Ennis stalked him down, firing a brutal assault that had Lima on the verge of collapse with nowhere to run. The Lima corner threw in the towel just at the moment that referee Shawn Clark waved it off.
The fight was a loud and clear message to the 154lbs division as Ennis, who had stopped Eimantas Stanionis in April to unify his IBF belt with the WBA title before electing to move up. Ennis says he felt much stronger after adding seven pounds of breathing room after years of struggling to make 147lbs.
The loss snapped a four-fight winning streak for Lima, who was rated in the top 15 by the IBF, WBA and WBC at 154lbs.
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
