Terence Crawford hopes Jaron Ennis surpasses him, ‘but I’m 10 steps ahead’

Although Terence Crawford hopes Jaron "Boots" Ennis surpasses him, he has reaffirmed he is “10 steps ahead” of the newly crowned WBA and WBO junior-middleweight champion.

There has been a debate over a bout between Crawford and Ennis ever since Crawford was stripped of his IBF welterweight strap for not defending it against his mandatory challenger in Ennis. Crawford would never defend any of his four 147-pound titles that he won with a dominant victory over Errol Spence Jnr in 2023. He would instead defeat Israel Madrimov for the WBA junior-middleweight belt before defeating Saul "Canelo" Alvarez for undisputed super-middleweight glory and calling it a career.

Ennis was promoted to champion when Crawford was stripped of his IBF belt and has since been paving his own path in the sport. He added the scalp of Xander Zayas to his collection this Saturday along with the Puerto Rican’s WBA and WBO titles with a dominant seventh-round stoppage.

Crawford appeared on his former opponent Shawn Porter’s podcast “The Porter Way” to give his opinion on Ennis’ performance. Crawford had tweeted “Ima keep my comments to myself, but y'all get it I hope,” following Ennis’ victory, but was more open when asked for his thoughts by Porter.

"To credit ‘Boots’, he's a tremendous talent and he's no walk in the park for no one,” said Crawford. “So he's a threat to anyone that he steps foot in the ring with. He’s got tremendous speed. He’s got great power, defense, reflexes, all that.”

Despite Crawford’s compliments, he maintained Ennis was still not on his level.

"The only thing that I can say is I'm 10 steps ahead of him,” he said. “I'm 10 steps ahead of him in smarts. And I think that's where he would get in trouble with coming straight forward, trying to box me or trying to think shot for shot.