Jaron Ennis turned a good, durable fighter into his personal pinata on Saturday.
The welterweight contender battered Sergey Lipinets for most of five-plus rounds before a right-left combination put the former 140-pound titleholder down and out in Round 6 in Uncasville, Conn.
If that was a test – which is how it was described beforehand – what’s better than an A+?
Ennis (27-0, 25 KOs) has now stopped 17 consecutive opponents, not counting a no-contest in his previous fight.
“Most definitely I feel like I graduated. Like I said before, it’s on [to] bigger and better fights now,” Ennis said in the ring afterward.
“Boots” opened the fight by showing off his boxing prowess, jabbing, following with power shots and moving out of range before the shorter, slower Lipinets could get near him.
But it didn’t take long for Ennis to test the waters inside, as he typically does. That allowed tLipinets to land punches here and there but it was the bigger, longer man who landed the meaningful blows.
Ennis started connecting on mind-numbing shots in Round 3 and didn’t let up for any length of time. Lipinets suffered a knockdown in Round 4, although it appeared to be the result of a trip and not one of Ennis’ big shots.
The real knockdown would come in the fifth. With about 50 seconds left in the round, Ennis hurt Lipinets with a right hook and followed with a straight left between the guard that knocked Lipinets onto his back.
Referee Arthur Mercante Jr. didn’t bother to count. It was clear to him and everyone watching that the Kazakhstani – his face bruised and swollen — had taken enough punishment from a huge puncher. The official end came at 2:11 of Round 6.
Ennis landed 53% of his power shots, according to CompuBox. And all of them, it seemed, did damage.
“That’s just what we work on in the gym,” he said, “a lot of power shots, a lot of speed, having fun doing my thing. And that’s what I did.”
He went on: “I knew I hurt him but I knew he was going to be durable and stuff like that. So I was like, ‘Take my time, coast it out, keep touching, keep touching, and I knew eventually I’d break him down.”
So what are the bigger and better fights?
Ennis wants to face one of the top fighters in a deep division. And no one is excluded, not Errol Spence Jr., not Terence Crawford, not Manny Pacquiao, no one. The question is: Will any of the above want to fight him?
He was asked whether it might be difficult to get a title fight after the latest in a series of dominating performances.
“No … well, maybe,” he said with a laugh. “Maybe, maybe. Who knows? One of them might want to fight me. We’ll see. I definitely think I’m ready for a Top 5, Top 3 guy. …
“I think [Yordenis Ugas] is going to fight Spence, something like that is coming up. Hopefully, I can get the winner of that. That would be a great fight for me.”
But would it be a great fight for Spence or Ugas?
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