Key Points
- Jaron "Boots" Ennis stopped Xander Zayas at 1:49 of Round 7 on June 27 in Brooklyn
- Ennis dropped Zayas in the first, fifth, and seventh rounds before the corner stopped it
- He won the WBA and WBO junior middleweight titles, a belt in his second weight class
- Ennis improved to 36-0 (32 KOs); Zayas fell to 23-1 in his first defeat
Jaron "Boots" Ennis went up to 154 pounds to take what Xander Zayas had spent his career building, and it took him seven rounds. At Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Saturday, Ennis knocked the unbeaten Puerto Rican down three times and forced a corner stoppage at 1:49 of the seventh round, walking out with the WBA and WBO junior middleweight titles and a second division to his name.
Ennis, the 29-year-old Philadelphian who unified the welterweight division in 2025, dropped Zayas in the opening round and never surrendered control. Zayas had his moment in the third, briefly stunning Ennis with a clean shot, but Ennis answered with body work and sharp counters, flooring Zayas again in the fifth and a third time in the seventh before the corner waved it off. He improved to 36-0 with 32 knockouts; Zayas, who unified the 154-pound titles in January and became the first Puerto Rican to do so, fell to 23-1 in the first loss of his career.
The performance is the argument Ennis has been waiting to make. He spent years as the best fighter most casual fans couldn't name, parked at welterweight while the division's marquee names avoided him; jumping up and dismantling a unified champion in his second fight at the weight is the kind of statement that forces the pound-for-pound conversation rather than asking to be let into it. Broadcast on DAZN pay-per-view and billed as a star-making night, it played out like one — and the undisputed 154-pound picture, with a possible date against Vergil Ortiz Jr., now runs through Philadelphia.
It is also a night that belongs to a city used to disappointment this year. Philadelphia, which watched its 76ers swept out of the first round, has a homegrown champion in Ennis — a healthier headline than Uristocrat's last boxing dispatch, the fallout from the crash that injured Anthony Joshua.
Source: ESPN, Sports Illustrated, FightMag
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