Boxing Challenge: Boots Ennis shines brightly!

Welterweight Jaron "Boots" Ennis may not have been in the main event from Uncasville, Connecticut on Showtime's three-fight card, but on a night that didn't have a lot of action, it was Ennis that walked away as the evening's star.

It wasn't that Ennis disposed of veteran gatekeeper Juan Carlos Abreu in six rounds as that would have been impressive enough considering Abreu had never been stopped in his five losses to contenders such as Egid Kavaliauskas, Alexander Besputin, and Jamal James.

It was how Ennis did it as he controlled Ennis with power punches that shook the durable veteran with every punch and showing veteran poise in the fifth round.

Ennis and Abreu each landed very low punches that cause brief stoppages and warnings, but as Abreu charged in, Ennis leaned away from the incoming punch and connected with a huge uppercut that dropped Abreu with seconds remaining in the round.

Abreu rose and survived, but tried some macho tactics to unnerve Ennis at the end of the round with an attempt to make Ennis do something dumb.

Ennis verbally sparred back to Abreu but showed maturity by not getting physical.

The decision proved fruitful when Ennis quickly dropped Abreu again and continued to batter Abreu into a corner before Abreu dropped to the floor for a second time with the referee waving the fight off.

It's not often that the first fight on a show leads off our recap, but as much as that says for the other fights on the evening, it says tons for the talent of Boots Ennis.

Ennis is almost certainly a future champion, assuming his chin holds up when tested.

My biggest concern with Boots Ennis is this- A few years from now, boxing fans may be pining away for a Boots Ennis-Vergil Ortiz welterweight unification fight as they currently are for an Errol Spence-Terence Crawford matchup and they may be equally unfulfilled.

In the main event, Erickson Lubin trudged through twelve rounds to win a unanimous decision over Terrell Gausha and put himself in position for a future junior middleweight title shot against the winner of next Saturday's Jermell Charlo-Jeison Rosario title unification bout.

The positives in this one, Gausha hurt Lubin in the tenth round, and round twelve was a pretty good round with both fighters exchanging punches.

Outside of those positives, this one was quite the snoozer with Lubin winning the rounds, but looking far from the exciting bomber that was at the top of most prospect lists before his one-round knockout loss to Jermell Charlo.

Lubin could arguably say he is more effective now, but he certainly isn't half as fun to watch.

Lubin's chin questions still are a concern after being hurt badly by Gausha, who is not known as a puncher, but that's one thing that can be said for the "new" Lubin- he is protecting that chin much better than in the past.

I scored Lubin a 118-110 winner with Lubin winning the first nine rounds.

I'm not sure Lubin will fare much better in a potential Charlo rematch, but should he decide to go bomb for bomb against Rosario, the result could be a memorable encounter.

But if it is this version of Lubin that arrives for his title shot, his challenge might not be more watchable than this victory.

Tug Nyambayar won a split decision over late replacement Cobia Breedy to win an eliminator that may lead to a rematch against WBC champion Gary Russell or at least another eliminator to earn that rematch.

Nyambayar fought much like he did in his loss to Russell with a reluctance to get off punches and giving away early rounds, but salvaged the first two with knockdowns in those rounds.

Nyambayar did begin winning rounds on the last half of the fight once he began to move his hands and won on my card 115-111 (7-5 in rounds minus two knockdown points).

Despite the victory, Nyambayar didn't seem especially motivated for the fight, which is understandable with a late replacement that was unknown at the world level and I wonder about his future with his tendency to start slowly continuing to plague him.

As for Breedy, his showing was an excellent one considering his lack of experience and stepping in on late notice.

Without those early knockdowns, Breedy may have had a case for a victory, although the scorecard for Breedy was an outlandish 115-111.

That scorecard gave Breedy nine of the ten rounds remaining after being knocked down twice and for all that Breedy overcame to make a good showing, that simply was not the case.

Meanwhile, over at the Top Rank bubble on ESPN+, Jose Pedraza won a ten round unanimous decision over Javier Molina in a battle of Olympic teammates.

Pedraza puzzled Molina and left him unable to do much offensively other than desperate and ineffective charges with Pedraza hitting him over and over with the straight right.

Not much else to say for this one other than Pedraza hurting Molina badly in the final round and Pedraza attempted to put Molina away for the strong finish.

Give Molina credit for holding off Pedraza and making it to the final bell, but that's mostly what he was about to walk away with as I scored Pedraza a 99-91.

Pedraza will likely be in the scramble next year for pne of the open titles after a projection that will see the Josh Taylor-Jose Ramirez winner give up the titles to move up to welterweight.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored seven points to move the total to 114-106.

Next week will have a NINE fight entry in the challenge, so a big week will be on hand!!