Last year, Jaron Ennis wanted to show how great he is and that people in the welterweight division would have to watch out for him. Stoppage wins over Bakhtiyar Eyubov and Juan Carlos Abreu had Ennis going through a 16 fight KO streak. A bout against Chris van Heerden ended that streak as a clash of heads caused a large cut on van Heerden to have the result be a no contest. This year Ennis wanted to get in the ring against an opponent highly rated in the division, and Sergey Lipinets was that opponent.

It took six rounds for Ennis to register his 25th knockout victory as he overwhelmed the smaller and slower Lipinets, leading to referee Arthur Mercante Jr. to waive the bout 2 minutes and 11 seconds into that sixth round. The pro record for “Boots” is now 27-0 and he handed the Kazakh fighter that now resides in Woodland Hills his second loss (16-2-1, 12 KOs). A mix of timely jabs and power shots over the course of the fight got Ennis the knockout as he connected on 125 total punches with 91 of them being power punches.

The 23 year old from Philadelphia switched from the orthodox stance to southpaw to throw off the timing of Lipinets and get through his defense. At one point Lipinets was able to land power shots on Ennis, but it did not halt the offensive onslaught that Ennis put on display. In the fourth round, he scored a knockdown from an uppercut landed which was just the second time that Lipinets had been on the canvas. After a round where Ennis showed his level of skill over Lipinets, he threw a series of shots capped off with a right hook and left uppercut to put Lipinets down and force the stoppage.

One thing that was evident in this fight for Ennis was his level of patience, but he felt that he needs to improve on that department. “I will keep working on being more relaxed,” he said after the victory. “I will continue to keep working on that, jabbing more, and having fun. My goal is to keep getting better, sharper, faster and stronger so I can become world champion.”

Ennis did point out that Lipinets was a game opponent and that having fights against Lamont Peterson and Mikey Garcia is why Lipinets is tough. “Lipinets has been in there with the best before, so I wasn’t surprised he held up for a while,” added Ennis. “I knew he’d be durable. That’s why I didn’t jump on the gas right away. I just took my time and broke him down.”

That performance is what has people that have seen him over the past couple of years think that he can become a world champion pretty soon. While he did mention that he would like to step in the ring against the current champions (Spence, Crawford, and Ugas), he would not mind fighting another top contender in the welterweight division.

“As long as I keep fighting top guys, I’m happy. I feel like I will be world champion by the end of this year or beginning of next year. Patience is the key though.”

Cover photo by Amanda Westcott of Showtime