LIVE BLOG: Xander Zayas vs. Jaron 'Boots' Ennis

NEW YORK – Unstoppable punishment.
Jaron “Boots” Ennis brought it all Saturday night to young 154lbs unified champion Xander Zayas, knocking Zayas down three times and taking the WBO and WBA belts by seventh-round TKO at Barclays Center.

SEVENTH ROUND: Another hard combination from Ennis has Zayas’ head looking like a speed bag. Ennis surges in again and decks Zayas with a combination that convinces referee Harvey Dock to stop the fight at 1:49. TKO win by new WBO/WBA 154-pound champion Jaron “Boots” Ennis, 36-0 (32 KOs).

SIXTH ROUND: Ennis’ lefts are landing at will. A big right rocks Zayas. Zayas gets in a combination as Ennis has slowed here. Another Ennis left.
10-9 Ennis

FIFTH ROUND: Ennis takes Zayas to hell, knocking him down early and delivering seemingly nonstop combinations to batter the Puerto Rican champion.
10-8 Ennis

FOURTH ROUND: Re-fueled by the break, Ennis slams fists to Zayas’ body and head, including a hellacious right-left to the head before Zayas answers impressively. Ennis gets the best of the final minute.
10-9 Ennis

THIRD ROUND: Zayas’ jabs score and set up vicious, head-rocking rights that change the complexion of the fight. Ennis determined to go to war, but he gets repeatedly rocked as Zayas slugs on.
10-9 Zayas

SECOND ROUND: Zayas worked to find his feet and landed some nice rights and a jab, but the speed of Ennis’ fists is startling in comparison and while the action slowed from the first, the challenger is looking sharp.
10-9 Ennis

FIRST ROUND: At the first bell, sent repeated power lefts upon Zayas’ face and then unleashed a lightning combination that dropped Zayas for the first time in his career. A later hard right jarred Zayas.
10-8 Ennis

Inside the Brooklyn arena where upper-deck seating was filled and a DAZN pay-per-view audience awaited, Zayas won the crowd’s support and walked in looking far more healthy than the drawn version who weighed in Friday. The 23-year-old dares to take on one of the era’s most avoided fighters in Ennis, who entered to “The Champ is Here,” while Zayas earned the real roars among the Puerto Rico-heavy crowd.
Ennis held his right glove to his right ear as jeers cascaded, wearing white shorts.
Zayas, in orange shorts, danced to the cheers at introduction with the Puerto Rico flag waving behind him.

Xander Zayas and Jaron "Boots" Ennis are in the ring. The Puerto Rican national anthem is currently being sung. 

Emiliano Vargas burnished the shine around the former world champion’s son Saturday night, stopping Bryce Mills in the fourth round in the Xander Zayas-Jaron “Boots” Ennis co-main event.
At Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Vargas followed his second knockdown of Mills by unloading a flurry that brought a stoppage 1 minute, 17 seconds into the frame.
“I just want to be great,” Vargas, 18-0 (15 KOs), said. “The sky’s the limit.”

England’s 2021 Olympic silver medalist Ben Whittaker, 12-0-1 (9 KOs), made short work of Richard Rivera, 27-3 (20 KOs), stopping him with a short left to the jaw early in the second round.
Whittaker dropped Rivera in the first with a hard right behind the left ear, then seized on Rivera charging at him in the second, gaining the stoppage from referee Michael Griffin.

In the opener of the pay-per-view portion of the card, Brooklyn middleweight Jahi Tucker, 17-1-1 (7 KOs), edged 2021 Olympian Euri Cedeno, now 14-1-1 (12 KOs), of the Dominican Republic by majority decision scores of 95-95, 97-93, 98-92. Tucker is now the IBF North American, WBC USA and WBO NABO middleweight champion.