BROOKLYN — Boots Ennis survived the toughest round of his career, then KO’d game but overmatched champ Xander Zayas in a beautifully brutal Saturday night title fight at Barclays Center.
When Ennis put Zayas on the canvas for the third time of the bout, Zayas's corner decided to save him from himself and threw in the towel with 1:12 left in the seventh round. With the win, Ennis took Zayas's WBO and WBA super welterweight belts and remained undefeated at 36-0. The Philly fighter also greatly advanced his pursuit of imaginary but highly coveted titles like “the face of boxing” and “pound-for-pound champ.”
But it didn’t come easy. Even in defeat, Zayas only raised his profile and reputation. Everybody inside the powder-keg arena was sure they’d just witnessed the fight of the year.
Fans were overwhelmingly on the side of Zayas, a 23-year-old Puerto Rico native, who only won the super welterweight title (154 pounds) last year. Ennis, a career 147-pounder, had just moved up in weight when there wasn’t anybody left there to test his mettle. Zayas, rather than taking on a few tomato cans to pad his bank account and get some seasoning, chose to give Ennis what he was looking for. Zayas decision to take on the toughest fight in his division earned him praise for courage, and questions about his wisdom. ESPN’s Sergio Mora, himself a former junior middleweight champ, compared Zayas's move to the one Canelo Alvarez made in 2013, when at 23 years old he took on Floyd Mayweather. Everybody now agrees that megafight came too soon for Canelo, who suffered the first and biggest loss of his amazing career to Mayweather, who went on to retire undefeated and regarded as the greatest fighter of his generation. Perhaps Saturday’s fight and fighters will one day be viewed similarly.
Ennis tried to curry favor with the New York crowd by walking out alongside local legend Jadakiss. He already had all the sweet-science pundits on his side. Going in, Ennis was regarded as perhaps the greatest offensive fighter in the game. Though Zayas, ringwalked by beloved New York Giant meathead Cam Skattebo, also had an unblemished record (23-0), and those belts, his punching power was questionable (only 13 wins by KO). So conventional thought was that Zayas's best and perhaps only chance to beat Boots was by sticking and moving his way to a decision win.
Zayas found himself taking a beating from the heavily favored challenger mere seconds after the opening bell. Ennis was living up to reputation and then some, landing jabs and haymakers and everything in between while switching back and forth from orthodox to southpaw. Less than two minutes into the fight, Zayas was sent to his knees after eating a multi-punch combo from Ennis. Zayas to that point had never been knocked down in his career, yet Ennis was making him look like he didn’t even belong in the same ring. Zayas appeared to have his wits about him, but stayed down until referee Harvey Dock was within a second of counting him out. When he finally got up, he had a new plan. He survived the round and then began pursuing Ennis.
Ennis, who remained standing in his corner between rounds, might have gotten a little too satisfied after having everything go his way so early. But he soon found himself facing a whole new Zayas, and a whole lot of pain. The underdog champ started landing his own bombs. He caught Ennis with repeat and massive body blows in the third round, leaving Boots wobbled and almost out on his feet, unlike anything he’d ever experienced as a pro. His legs and jab abandoned him. Zayas partisans shrieked for their guy to shock the world as Ennis held on as if his legacy depended on it. Ennis caught a massive break when the referee paused the bout late in the round to warn Zayas about shoving his opponent to break out of a clutch. We’ll never know how this night, and the fighters’ respective careers, would have gone had Ennis not been granted those precious seconds to recover some wind and his wits. Regardless, the last minute of the third round was the stuff Hagler/Hearns was made of. The arena was on the verge of exploding when the bell came with Ennis miraculously still on his feet.
Ennis faced questions he’d never before been asked in the ring, and answered them all. He just wasn’t going to go down. Halfway through the fifth round, Boots countered a massive body shot from Zayas with a quick counter right hand to the chin. The battered champ again barely beat the count and finished the round on pluck alone. The referee warned his corner between rounds he’d halt the fight if Zayas took much more punishment without dishing any out. Zayas never stopped moving forward, and also never stopped taking punishment from both of Boots' hands.
Even Zayas understood when his corner called the bout in the savage seventh. He stayed on his knees on the canvas and nodded his head as Dock hugged him and told him his night was over.
“They’re here to save me,” he said in his postfight ring interview.
Ennis was up 59-53 on all three judges’ scorecards after six rounds. Ennis predicted throughout the runup to the fight that he’d take the title via knockout. He lived up to his own forecasts in grand fashion. He pooh-poohed questions about his close brush with disaster in the classic third round. “That was just me being lazy,” he said. “I gotta sharpen that up.”
Zayas didn’t give any hint of regret about taking a fight some thought as foolhardy.
“You dream big, sometimes you come up short,” the newly former champ said.
