Jaron “Boots” Ennis is being lined up to fight Vergil Ortiz in the first quarter of 2026, should he secure victory on his junior middleweight debut this Saturday, according to Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn.
Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs), 28, boxes Uisma Lima (14-1, 10 KOs) in his first fight at 154 pounds at the Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia, after climbing to top spot in ESPN’s rankings at welterweight.
Following a sixth-round TKO victory over Eimantas Stanionis in a world title unification bout in April, Ennis aims to deliver a big performance against the little-known Lima, from Angola and based in Portugal, in front of his hometown fans to catapult him into bigger fights.
As the WBA interim title will be on the line, Saturday’s winner progresses to a shot at WBA world junior middleweight champion Abass Barou (17-1, 9 KOs), from Germany.
But Hearn wants to make a bigger fight for Boots versus Ortiz (23-0, 21 KOs), who is due to defend the WBC interim junior middleweight title vs. Erickson Lubin on Nov. 8.
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“We want the biggest fights after Saturday, and for me the one that makes the most sense and the one that has been negotiated is Vergil Ortiz,” Hearn told ESPN. “We sat in a room with Golden Boy and DAZN, we worked out the deal structure, and in his deal extension with us Boots signed for that fight with Ortiz.
“Eric Gomez [President of Golden Boy Promotions] actually called me yesterday and said ‘We want to do that fight, but we want to get our fight [vs. Lubin] out the way first, and then we want this fight for the first quarter of 2026,’ so I take their word for that at the moment. We shall see.
“I think it’s one of the best fights in boxing, I really do.”
Hearn expects Ennis to be better at junior middleweight and says the Philadelphia-based boxer is willing to fight any of the world champions in 2026.
Ortiz, from Texas, and WBC world junior middleweight champion Sebastian Fundora (23-1-1, 15 KOs), from California, are No. 1 and 2 respectively at 154 pounds in ESPN’s latest divisional rankings.
But Hearn believes Ennis will be simply passing through the junior middleweight division and could even compete at super middleweight.
“The most important thing is to get a shot at a 154 pounds world title, and that could come from [WBO] Xander Zayas, [IBF] Bakhram Murtazaliev, [WBC] Sebastian Fundora, the WBA champion Abass Baraou or the WBC interim champion Vergil Ortiz,” Hearn told ESPN.
“He will be a different animal at 154 pounds — and I don’t know how he made 147. He could fight at 168 pounds easy, and I think middleweight is the division where you will see the best of him.
“I believe Boots is the future pound-for-pound No. 1 in the sport and the natural successor of Terence Crawford. We saw what he could do against the No. 2 welterweight in the world in Stanionis, now I want to see him against Ortiz, Murtazaliev, Zayas, then I want to see him move to 160 pounds and fight the likes Carlos Adames and Erislandy Lara. He will be a minimum four-weight world champion in my opinion.
“What you saw at 147 pounds was a depleted fighter, but still a phenomenal fighter. The weird thing in boxing is when a fighter moves up in weight, it’s still a struggle to make weight. Everyone is tight at the weight and this is an example that even at 154 pounds, Boots will make it easier than 147 pounds but he will still be tight. He will make it fine but it will always be tight until he reaches a higher division.”
