Jaron Ennis: respect for Xander Zayas, forget Terence Crawford, Vergil Ortiz pretending

Jaron "Boots" Ennis has had time to think about things since his seventh-round stoppage victory over Xander Zayas on June 27, and three themes seem to be coming to the surface: Xander Zayas deserves respect, he’s sick of talking about Terence Crawford and Vergil Ortiz doesn’t really want to fight.

Philadelphia’s Ennis, 36-0, 32 KOs, scored three knockdowns over Zayas to win the WBO and WBA junior middleweight titles at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

While Ennis appeared to have the upper hand through most of the fight, in the third, Zayas appeared to stun Ennis with a series of right hands in a heart-stopping back-and-forth three-minute session many are calling a candidate for round of the year. 

“I see what people were saying. It looked crazy, but if you really sit there and watch it, I wasn't hurt,” Ennis told Ariel Helwani today. “Like I said before, when you’re hurt, you're not going to sit there and bang it out. You’re going to move. You’re going to slide up the ropes and be on the retreat. I wasn't on the retreat. I was in the pocket right there. I was just trying to catch in between shots.

“I ain't gonna lie, I thought I had a little bit more space than I did,” he added with a laugh. “He just snuck a little right hand in there. It was a clean right hand, too.”

Ennis blames laziness for the temporary flip of the script in round three.

“I just get lazy in moments where it's too easy, and you can't do that. When it gets too easy, you’ve got to pick it up. I'm glad the fight went how it went. It was nothing but a learning experience for me.”

Of the stoppage, Ennis made it clear he is NOT in the camp claiming Zayas quit or showed a lack of heart.

“To be honest, I don't think he quit. I just think I beat the fight out of him. He’s a great fighter; a solid fighter and a solid champion. I appreciate him for giving me an opportunity. He'll be champion again… When I dropped him, I looked in my corner to get instructions. That's what people do. They look to the corner and get instructions… If the corner didn't throw the towel, I think he would have got up.”

Ennis, a former unified welterweight champion, says young Zayas is headed to bigger and better things at heavier weight divisions.

“I think he's gonna be solid at 160. He’s a big kid. I think he'd be fine at 160, and I think 160 wide open, so I think he'll be champion again, for sure.”

Before, and especially after, the fight with Zayas, talks of Ennis coaxing retired former champion Terence Crawford back into the ring for a showdown were rampant. Crawford even alluded to it in his own post-fight tweets.

“I ain't worried about what nobody got going on. I’m just thinking about what's in front of me… I’m here to take over this division and this sport. This game is mine… I don't even care. I don't want to hear none of that stuff about him. He’s saying he’s enjoying his retirement. I don't consider him anything. I don't even care. 

“People just keep asking me questions about it. I don't pay him no mind. I don’t want people asking me questions about it, for real.”

And as for the other name he hears often as a potential opponent, Vergil Ortiz Jnr, Ennis says he’s skeptical Ortiz really wants the smoke like he claims.

“Me, Eddie, my brothers, we went there (to see Ortiz) by ourselves… No invite, no nothing… to let them know that we want this fight, face to face. They were giving us a hard time. And then right there… I'm like these guys don’t want to fight for real. When we faced off, he acted like he wanted it… I thought the fight was set in stone… We had, like, a couple dates or whatever, and they kept falling through, and I guess they came up with, whatever they got going on now.”

And what about Ortiz’s viral tweet claiming he would “sleep” Ennis after watching him against Zayas?

“Is this the same guy that’s been on the floor multiple times?” he asked. “He gets hurt… What's gonna happen when I touch him? Make that make sense.”

Ennis says he hopes to be back in the ring by year’s end.