‘Boots’ Ennis: Finding Opponents Has Been a Challenge for Co-Manager Cameron Dunkin

Given the fact that he has won his last 11 bouts inside the distance, there is a better-than-good chance that smokin’ hot welterweight prospect Jaron “Boots” Ennis (21-0, 19 KOs) will put away fellow Philadelphia fighter Raymond Serrano (24-5, 10 KOs) sometime before Friday night’s scheduled 10-rounder at the 2300 Arena in South Philly, to be televised via ShoBox: The New Generation, goes to the judges’ scorecards.

But another quick, emphatic and impressive demonstration of Ennis’ handiwork inside the ropes could make the task of procuring the next victim, uh, opponent even more daunting for co-manager Cameron Dunkin, whose list of fighter-clients past and present includes the celebrated likes of Terence Crawford, Nonito Donaire, Timothy Bradley Jr., Jessie Vargas, Mark “Too Sharp” Johnson, Danny Romero, Stevie Johnston, Kelly Pavlik and the late Johnny Tapia and Diego Corrales.

If fellow co-manager Derrick “Bozy” Ennis, his son’s trainer, is to be believed, Serrano accepted the frequently painful challenge of swapping punches with the youngest and most talented of the three boxing Ennis brothers after a veritable Mummer’s Parade of other fighters had said thanks, but no thanks.

“I heard that something like 18 different people turned Boots down until Serrano said he’d take the fight,” said Bozy Ennis, a former middleweight who took older and now-retired sons Derek “Pooh” Ennis (24-5-1, 13 KOs) and Farah Ennis (22-2, 12 KOs) to minor titles before catching a legitimate glimpse of the big time with the baby boxer of the family. “I don’t know how true that is, but Serrano doesn’t back down from nobody. That’s my man. He used to spar at my old gym.”

To be fair, the 29-year-old Serrano has a vision of significantly boosting his own stock should he upset Boots Ennis, 21, who has been hailed by some as the best young prospect to come out of the great fight town of Philadelphia since Olympic gold medalist and future two-division world champion Meldrick Taylor in the mid-1980s. “I am excited. This is Philly vs. Philly,” Serrano said when the bout was announced last month. “We are two of the best welterweights going at it. With a win, this will lead me to even bigger fights.”

Maybe, but then the formerly undefeated Armando Alvarez figured he’d be the one to take some of the shine off Boots when they squared off for the fringe WBC Silver welterweight title on July 20 in Sloan, Iowa, which also was televised by ShoBox: The New Generation. Alvarez, who went in with an 18-0 record with 12 knockouts, was floored four times in the third round before referee Adam Pollack stepped in and waved off the surprisingly one-sided – well, at least to some – beat-down.

With what arguably was Boots Ennis’ most impressive victory as a pro, the cost to Dunkin of lining up the next opponent jumped even higher than it already had been.

“It’s really find hard guys willing to fight Boots,” said Dunkin, who has been down this road before with other future champions and knows he will have to go down it again, maybe with acclaimed amateur David Stephens, a winner of multiple national championships who will be turning pro as a cruiserweight on Friday’s card. “You get people who will fight him because they’ve given up, their careers are over and they’re just looking to get paid. Of course, TV and the commissions don’t want them. Guys who are young and still have a lot of hope and promise don’t want to go near Boots because they know they’ll probably lose.

“All you can do is hope you can pay enough money to get someone to fight him. To Serrano’s credit, he has a ton of guts. He’s a real fighter and he accepted the challenge. But, you know, we’ve been dealing with this for a long time. It’s not easy getting anyone to fight Boots. We’ve highly overpaid guys for six-rounders and even-four rounders. We’ve paid top dollar and even beyond top dollar. I tried to keep the lid on Boots a little bit and told Bozy that the more his son won, the harder it was going to be to get guys to fight him. And the cost of finding opponents keeps going up. We could have fought for the WBC Silver belt sooner, but after what Boots did to Alvarez I knew the cost of getting opponents had just gone up another $10,000.”

Curiously, Boots Ennis is not ranked among the top 15 welterweights by any of the four major world sanctioning bodies. Dunkin said that is partly by design, a resistance to prematurely pushing a gifted kid into matches with more experienced fighters before he’s ready. He said this Boots was made for walking, at least until he’s ready to run at the level his skill set is sure to take him when the time is right.

“He’s a super talent,” Dunkin said. “He’s so fast and so quick and he hits really hard. His reflexes are unbelievable. I can go on and on about all the attributes he has. Oh, and he’s also a gym rat. He lives in the gym and soaks everything up. He’s always working on things in order to become a more complete fighter. And he’s only 21 years old! It isn’t often you find someone who’s so skilled and yet so mature at that age.

“Bozy and I decided at the outset that there was no need to rush things along. He was only 18 when he turned pro. Somebody that young, you don’t know when he’ll get all his physical strength and learn all the things that only come with experience. Boots listened and he agreed to go along with the program. He said, `When my dad decides I’m ready to step up, I’ll step up.’

“Back then, he thought he could be a great fighter. Now he knows it. There’s a big difference. He’s so close even now. The moment he beats a `name’ fighter, he’ll be in the ratings. There are now one or two guys now (Crawford and Errol Spence Jr., maybe?) I’d be concerned with putting him in with at this point. Everyone else, I’m OK with. He’s that good. But he can be so much better.”

So how does Boots feel about the slow-and-steady approach favored by his dad and Dunkin?

“It’ll happen when it happens,” he said of his expected grand arrival on the big stages where stars and reputations are made. “I’m only 21. For now, all I can do is keep beating everybody they put in front of me.”

In other TV fights, both scheduled eight-rounders, super lightweight Samuel “Tsunami” Teah (14-2-1, 7 KOs), from Philly by way of his native Liberia, takes on Chicago’s Kenneth Sims Jr. (13-1-1, 4 KOs) and super bantamweight Jorge Diaz (19-5-1, 10 KOs), of New Brunswick, N.J., faces Arnold Khegai (13-0-1, 9 KOs), a Ukrainian now fighting out of Philadelphia.

Teah, 31, might have perished along with five relatives and a family friend – including two brothers, two nieces and an 18-month-nephew – had he been at home on Dec. 26, 2008, when a kerosene heater exploded in the basement of their Southwest Philadelphia residence, igniting a conflagration that razed the three-story brick duplex. The human tragedy of that night (Teah’s mom and three other family members survived) has stamped Teah as a survivor in more ways than one.

Bernard Fernandez is the retired boxing writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. He is a five-term former president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, an inductee into the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Atlantic City Boxing Halls of Fame and the recipient of the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism and the Barney Nagler Award for Long and Meritorious Service to Boxing.

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