From Philadelphia. Matchroom/DAZN presented Jaron "Boots" Ennis in his Matchroom debut as well as his first defense of his IBF welterweight title against David Avanesyan, a replacement for Cody Crowley, who was forced to drop out with an eye injury.
Avanesyan was stopped in six rounds by Terence Crawford in December 2022, so there was some interest in comparing Crawford and Ennis to their fights against Avanesyan.
Ennis took only five rounds as the fight was stopped in the corner after round five and Ennis definitely impressed with his smooth offensive style battering Avanesyan throughout the fight.
Ennis knocked Avanesyan down in the fifth and was landing loads of punches after the knockdown.
Avanesyan survived the round on unsteady legs and the corner did the right thing by ending the fight.
Ennis looked great and while many would love to see him against Terence Crawford, that fight isn't happening, and the available unifications might not be easy to make or overly exciting (Eimantas Stanonis WBA and Mario Barrios WBC are with PBC and soon-to-be promoted to WBO full champion Brian Norman is associated with Top Rank), so it's possible that Ennis may have to move to junior middleweight before we find out just how good he is- And my suspicions are that he is excellent.
After the late fall-out from Janibek Alimkhanuly, lightweight contender Raymond Muratalla's fight with former IBF junior lightweight champion Tevin Farmer was moved to the ESPN+/Top Rank main event from Las Vegas.
And for seven rounds, Farmer was on the verge of a major upset and was slightly leading on my card.
But Farmer was deducted a point for holding in round eight ( a questionable call in my opinion) and was badly hurt in the final round as part of a three-round sweep for Muratalla to pull out a unanimous decision.
Scores were 97-92, 96-93, and 95-94 for the unbeaten contender, my card agreeing with the 96-93 version.
Muratalla called out WBO champion Denis Baranchyk after the fight and that would be an easy fight to make promotionally but William Zepeda (the top contender in all four organizations) is rumored to see Baranchyk as the easiest of the four champions and may select the WBO title as the fight that Zepeda will fight for, which means Muratalla will have to wait.
As for Farmer, the veteran looked very good when you consider his recent inactivity and he could be in the title picture, should he be able to repeat his performance on Saturday.
Boxing Challenge
Vince Samano: 50 Pts (1)
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