It will be a dream pairing of talent when unbeaten welterweight champion Jaron “Boots” Ennis and unbeaten junior bantamweight Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez defend their belts in bouts staged at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center on November 9 on DAZN.
What’s more enticing is the possibility of bringing Ennis and Rodriguez back together for an even more profound card on February 22 in Saudi Arabia.
While several events need to transpire for this appetizing scenario to materialize, key representatives involved have discussed the possibility of staging an Ennis-Vergil Ortiz Jnr junior middleweight fight on that card.
And while Rodriguez is owed an opponent who can create a unified 115-pound title bout, another powerful player is interested in cutting line to make an even more compelling match: four-division champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez.
Robert Garcia, who trains both Ortiz and Rodriguez, said there has been interest expressed by Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh in anchoring his planned February 22 card with Ennis, 32-0 (29 KOs), versus Ortiz, 22-0 (21 KOs), adding that two-division champion Rodriguez, 20-0 (13 KOs), has heard the interest of Gonzalez, 52-4 (42 KOs).
For now, Rodriguez needs to get past veteran WBC interim junior bantamweight titleholder Pedro Guevara, 42-4-1 (22 KOs), on the Philadelphia card. But due to the title turbulence in the division, it may be impossible for promoter Matchroom to stage a promised unification for Rodriguez in his next bout, which was part of a recent three-fight extension the fighter signed with Eddie Hearn’s company.
Unified champ Fernando Martinez (WBA, IBF) might be headed to a rematch with former belt holder Kazuto Ioka, and new WBO titlist Phumelele Cafu could be excused for meeting someone other than the relentless Rodriguez, 24, in Cafu’s first title defense.
“Bam only wants to fight the fights that mean something, the ones that make sense,” Garcia said. “He wants those challenges …”
And when word reached Garcia’s camp that Gonzalez has interest in fighting Rodriguez, after the pair sparred for three eight-round sessions before Rodriguez’s seventh-round knockout of former two-division champion Juan Francisco “Gallo” Estrada on June 29, a better option than a unification arose.
While Rodriguez and Gonzalez’s Japanese promoter, Teiken, have frowned on its two stars fighting, Matchroom’s Hearn has previously expressed a push to make that fight.
“I want to see [Rodriguez] make a lot of money,” Hearn said in Phoenix right after the Estrada victory. “As big as a unification is, it’s not as big as Chocolatito, especially now that [Rodriguez] is near the top five fighters in the world.”
Garcia knows the way Rodriguez thinks, how he would find it ideal to top off the triple crown of defeating veteran champions and 115-pounders Carlos Cuadras, Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and Estrada by defeating former world pound-for-pound No. 1 Gonzalez.
“If there’s no unification available, why not do it against Chocolatito?” Garcia asked. “Huge fight.”
Rodriguez told BoxingScene on Tuesday, following a workout in Riverside, California, “I’ve seen some things on ‘X’ [about Gonzalez’s interest in a fight]. If it does happen, I don’t mind that. … I wait for the call, and whenever I get the call, I head back here to Riverside to get ready.”
Garcia said he opted not to summon Gonzalez to spar Rodriguez during this camp for Guevara, saying he also heard Gonzalez was saying “he got the best of Bam in sparring. … It was great sparring. I’m not saying he got the best of us, but I’m not saying we got the best of him. All three were very even.
“[Gonzalez] thinks he got the best? He threw a lot of punches [in the sparring sessions]. It’d be a heck of a fight.”
How that plays out following Rodriguez-Guevara will be compelling.
Boxing industry insiders have also speculated the February 22 card might be another “5 vs 5” card, perhaps with Hearn’s Matchroom stable with Ennis and WBC lightweight titleholder Shakur Stevenson pitted against Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions roster, which includes Ortiz and unanimous No. 1 lightweight contender William Zepeda.
Stevenson is recovering from hand surgery, and Zepeda still has to get through a November 16 bout against former 130-pound titlist Tevin Farmer in Saudi Arabia.
Alalshikh’s interest in staging Ennis-Ortiz would enrich boxing’s deepest division, which counts four-division champion Terence Crawford, two-belt champion Sebastian Fundora and impressive IBF titleholder Bakhram Murtazaliev.
Alalshikh watched Ortiz’s stirring recovery from two knockdowns to defeat Ukraine’s Serhii Bohachuk by decision on August 10 in Las Vegas, and he has heaped praise on Ennis.
Ortiz and his father, Vergil Ortiz Snr, confirmed that the Ennis bout has been suggested to them and they are willing to participate.
“[My team] knows what I’m going to say: I don’t care who I fight,” Ortiz Jnr told BoxingScene Wednesday. “It’s, ‘Hell, yeah.’”
Ortiz Snr knows it requires a wait for Ennis to make his silly mandatory IBF title defense in Philadelphia against Karen Chukhadzhian, whom he already defeated by three 120-108 scorecards in January 2023.
And while purse money still needs to be negotiated, the elder Ortiz expressed enthusiasm for a bout that would be an elite non-title fight matching the 27-year-old Ennis and Ortiz, 26, with their combined records of 54 wins, no losses and 50 knockouts.
“Belts don’t feed you … as long as they pay you.” Ortiz Snr said. “[Ennis] is hittable, just like everyone else we’ve fought.”
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.