Nothing official announced but rumblings online that both parties have agreed, with date/venue/broadcaster locked in. October 22nd on Showtime at Barclay's. Likely to be for the vacant WBC title after Errol Spence and Terence Crawford move up to 154lb following their upcoming welterweight unification. That fight is slated for October 15th, meaning the green belt will only go unruddered for a week upon being vacated. Ennis and Thurman are ranked #3 and #4 by the WBC respectively. Both also happen to be in the WBO's and WBA's top four, so not outside the realm of possibility for either of those and/or the WBC to be at stake. Sidebar: you'd best believe Imma find out what that middle initial "A." stands for, already been on the case. Since finding out he had a middle initial a few weeks ago it's been driving me nuts. Four months gives me plenty of time. Stalking family members on Facebook, offering small bribes, whatever it takes, IB will crack the case!
I suppose Ennis has to do something while Spence and Crawford conclude their multi-year mating dance.
Thurman has not been active enough at the highest level for the last 4/5 years, and Boots seems legit. Just hope Keith has enough left to make it competetive and pose some questions Ennis has yet to be asked. But hard to see anything other than a Boots stoppage - though if Thurman can take him past 7/8 it could get interesting!
Ennis by violent KO. Keith "One Time I was a Boxer" Thurman showed nothing in his last fight, nor the years he spent after losing to Pac, that says he can handle that smoke.
Would love this fight. Probably the best one Ennis can make for the time being, too. I'd certainly expect to attend this one in person.
Not that anyone cares about my little quest but I've made the following inroads: His mother's maiden name is "Sharon Anderson". I've done detailed public records searches, however, and turned up nothing for a "Jaron Anderson Ennis" in quotes, even when setting a date range to prior to his professional debut to erase all the clutter of boxing media hype, hoping for maybe a teenage arrest for getting rowdy at a party or a traffic violation or something to pop in some database. Nor do any of the most common A names (Aaaron, Andrew, etc) bear fruit when plugged into the quotation matrices. One of his several siblings (James, who also appears to have boxed albet at much lower levels than Jaron himself or elder bros Farah and Derek "Pooh" Ennis Jr., both of whom achieved modest fame in the late aughts and early teens on ShoBox and FNF, the latter very confusingly a "junior" despite his name being spelled differently than their dad, Derrick "Bozy" Ennis, unsuccessful eighties Philly pug turned trainer who does appear to sometimes use "Derek Sr." as an alias) also has A as their middle initial. Once again, attempts to triangulate from there using a narrowed search coordinate of "James Anderson/Andrew/Aaron Ennis" etc in Philadelphia has yet to turn up any hits. My original goal was to find out by Jaron's birthday, two weeks from today (was going to make a thread on him with videos of all his kayos entitled "okay, fine, I was slow to accept it but Jaron ??? 'Boots' Ennis might indeed be the truth". Four months is a lot less pressure, so - thanks Thurman/Espinoza/et al.
In January 2019, I remember watching Josesito Lopez throwing wild shots at Thurman that were missing by a mile and Thurman not willing to try to make him pay for those misses and that was enough to convince me that it's over for Thurman.
Gotta agree with everyone so far - Boots certainly looks like the real deal, hopefully Thurman comes completely prepared & gives Ennis the good work he needs! If Boots fights up to his massive potential, he will surpass Crawford in my eyes. There aren't many fighters around that get me excited nowadays, but Ennis sure is one of them! A real throw-back in my eyes.
Thurman looked much better than i thought he would look in the fight against Barrios. Compare his performance to Tank Davis performance and you can see why Davis is a bit of a fraud and all power with very limited talent. Nevertheless i do not trust Thurman at this point. And i do rate Boots Ennis very highly so my pick for this one is Boots via KO in the mid/late rounds.
I gave Thurman a B- for that performance against Barrios. I wasn't super-impressed with Thurman in that fight. It was a wide UD win but Thurman did nothing to Barrios that Akhmedov hadn't already done to Barrios at 140 (with Barrios, unfortunately, being gifted the decision). I remember Thurman had Barrios hurt in the 4th round - but Thurman didn't try particularly hard to finish him. Still too cautious. I think the "negotiations" with Ennis are not in earnest and it's somehow a ploy to convince Crawford or Spence that Thurman can be a game and dangerous opponent and that he has other options for big fights. A bluff, really.
