Tim Bradley correctly assessing a fighter’s chances via their facial expressions prior to the opening bell is increasingly a pattern.
In July, ahead of a seemingly 50-50 fight between Hamzah Sheeraz and Edgar Berlanga, Bradley observed Berlanga’s odd fixation on taunting promoter Oscar De La Hoya during the build-up. To him, it suggested a lack of confidence. Bradley didn’t like the look of Berlanga walking to the ring, either.
“When I saw Berlanga’s face walking out, I turned to my wife and I said, ‘He’s gonna get knocked out,” Bradley told BoxingScene after the fight. “‘He’s scared. I can see it on his face.’ He did not want to be there.” Sure enough, Sheeraz unleashed ferocious combinations that stopped Berlanga in the fifth round.
Jaron “Boots” Ennis-Uisma Lima on Saturday night was a more lopsided match-up going in. But Bradley initially figured Lima, strong and durable to the eye, would last a few rounds. Then the fighters faced off in the ring.
“When the ref was giving his last-minute instructions, I was looking at the eyes of Lima, and I was like, ‘Oh, he’s scared as hell. This ain’t going to go that long. He’s going to get caught, he’s going to get hurt’,” Bradley told BoxingScene.
That moment came midway through the first round. Ennis overreached with a winging left hand out of the southpaw stance, leaving his jaw open for a hard left from Lima. But as Lima landed, Ennis slammed in his own hybrid hook-uppercut, hurting the Angolan underdog. Ennis’ follow-up combination – punctuated by a short, violent, and blindingly fast right hook – deposited Lima on to the canvas. Two further flurries sent the towel flying in.
“I’m looking for discipline, I’m looking for fundamentals, I’m looking for defense, I’m looking for offense,” Bradley said of the 28-year-old Philadelphian’s junior-middleweight debut. “I’m looking for all these elements – these small, subtle things. And I saw it. I saw his jab working, I saw his eyes working, I saw his IQ. He lunged a couple times. His distance isn’t always right. But his athleticism allows him to make up for those mistakes.”
What did beating the 32-year-old Lima prove, anyway? Bradley regardless found Ennis’ demolition revealing.
“This dude can be a jabroni and then take you the distance and make you look bad, and then it’s like, ‘He went the distance with a nobody!’” Bradley said. “If you don’t belong in the ring with ‘Boots’ Ennis, if you’re not on his level, you’re going to get knocked out. Period.
“[Eimantas] Stanionis was a respected world champion. Many people were saying he could put pressure on Boots. Some critics were even saying that he was gonna beat Boots. And what did Boots do? He ran through him like nothing.”
After the fight, Ennis called out everybody of note in the 154lbs division – even the scarcely mentioned Bakhram Murtazaliev. The name front and center, however, was Vergil Ortiz. Ennis and his promoter Eddie Hearn declared that if Ortiz beats Erickson Lubin in November, their fight will finally be next.
Many see Ennis-Ortiz as a 50-50 fight. Bradley does not.
“When you have a one-dimensional fighter versus a guy that has so many dimensions that he can depend on, you gotta go with the guy with more dimensions,” Bradley said. “You’ve got a guy in Ortiz who has that Terminator-type of determination. However, that can be tamed. That can be tamed with skills and tactics.
“When Floyd Mayweather fought against Ricky Hatton, a come-forward, aggressive fighter who threw a lot of punches, he beat him with skill, positioning, movement, setting traps. Boots has all these abilities that he can use against Ortiz. What happens if [Ortiz’s] toughness and throwing all those punches don’t work? What else does he have to depend on? He’s not going to go off the back foot and start boxing. He’s not a boxer.”
Ortiz also fights in a high guard – a mode of defense Bradley thinks little of.
“That’s easy to fight against,” he explained. “You can pick through that high guard, go around that high guard, attack the body. You can split that high guard with the uppercut, and Boots got one of the coldest uppercuts in the game.
“I’ll even take this a little further, if you want me to take it further. Ortiz is able to outwork most people. He throws 55, 60 punches a round. Boots can match that output. Boots got an Uzi. Boots got an AK-47. Boots got grenades. He can bomb you from the outside. There’s nothing that Boots can’t do. It’s just, again, putting the right skill and tactics in the right moment. That’s all he has to do, having a great game plan. And that’s it! He beats all these guys, Ortiz included.
“Even with all that relentless pressure – that can be tamed as well, with movement, with a good jab, with combinations, with setting lateral traps, making him pay for every single mistake. I’m looking at him when he fought [Israil] Madrimov, [Serhii] Bohachuk. Bohachuk in spots was able to push him back, and you saw Ortiz trying to box a little bit. It’s not his strong suit. Madrimov was boxing, moving around. Ortiz, every step he was taking in the ring, had to reposition. Madrimov didn’t make him pay like Boots can make him pay, though.
“I look at these subtle things, and I say to myself, ‘The fight can be really tough if you don’t stay disciplined and have a gameplan’… If Boots can do that and fight the right fight and use the right weapon at the right time, he makes this Ortiz fight look easy as hell! Easy! Like a walk in the damn park.”
Bradley believes Sebastian Fundora could pose issues for Ennis, given the sheer dimensions of the WBC beltholder. But he would still favor the Philadelphian to come out on top. Asked who is likeliest to beat Ennis one day, Bradley thought for several seconds and couldn’t produce a name, but said with confidence that they surely reside in higher weight classes.
Bradley had some words for Eddie Hearn, Ennis’s enthusiastic promoter. Upon signing “Boots”, Hearn announced that his then-welterweight would become undisputed champion at 147lbs, 154, and 160. Given Ennis’ recent ascension to junior middle, a jubilant Hearn modified his prediction in the ring, post-fight: Ennis would dominate 154, 160, and 168.
“I’ll tell you this. Eddie Hearns [sic], stop playing,” Bradley said. “Stop playing with people’s emotions. Let’s just talk about 54 right now. I know you’re a promoter, but let’s talk about the present, not the future. What’s the smoke at 54, which is one of the hottest, most talented divisions right now? We want Boots to fight the best guys out there. We’re tired of these jabronis… put him in there with a real one so we can see his damn greatness. Stop worrying about 168, 160, all this stuff.”
As for Boots himself?
“Keep fighting, keep showing your greatness, let’s start fighting these champions, knocking these guys off one by one,” he said. “You got the skill, you got the talent. Do you damn believe it, Boots? If you believe it, you gonna be unstoppable, man.”
Owen Lewis is a contributing writer at Defector Media and has bylines at The Guardian, The Second Serve, and Awful Announcing. He is also a writer and editor at BoxingScene. His beats are tennis, boxing, cycling, books, travel and anything else that satisfies his meager attention span. He is on Bluesky and can be contacted at owentennis11@gmail.com.
