RISING WELTERWEIGHT STAR JARON “BOOTS” ENNIS SCORES SENSATIONAL SIXTH-ROUND KNOCKOUT OVER SERGEY LIPINETS
*Rising welterweight star *Jaron
“Boots” Ennis* aced the toughest test of his professional career with a
sensational sixth-round knockout win over former world champion *Sergey
Lipinets *in the main event on Saturday night’s SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP
BOXING telecast, live on SHOWTIME from Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville,
Conn., in a Premier Boxing Champions event.
The win puts Philadelphia’s Ennis (27-0, 25 KOs) one step closer to his
first world title opportunity as he dismantled the former 140-pound world
champion over six rounds of their welterweight battle. As he has done often
throughout his career, the 23-year-old switched effortlessly between an
orthodox and southpaw stance and exhibited tremendous power from both
sides. Ennis finished the fight with an eye-popping 53% connect rate on his
power punches and out-landed Lipinets 91 to 48.
“I’ll always be hard on myself when I look back at my performance,” said
Ennis. “My goal is to keep getting better, sharper, faster and stronger so
I can become world champion. 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.”
The 32-year-old Joe Goossen-trained Lipinets (16-2-1, 12 KOs) of Woodland
Hills, Calif., showed determination in weathering the onslaught of
combinations from Ennis. An uppercut floored the Kazakhstan-born Lipinets
and sent him to the canvas for the second time in his professional career
in the fourth round. Prior to tonight, Lipinets had only been down in his
other professional loss which came at the hands of four-division world
champion Mikey Garcia.
“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.”
In the sixth round, Ennis poured it on Lipinets from all angles as he
beautifully assembled combinations. The budding superstar has yet to go
past the sixth round in his professional career as he has amassed a
remarkable 89% knockout ratio. Ennis was up 49-45 on two scorecards and
50-44 on the final judges’ card prior to the right hook to left uppercut
combination that resulted in the fight being stopped at 2:11 of round six.
Saturday night marked Ennis’ first time headlining SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP
BOXING
“I think I graduated tonight,” stated Ennis. “It’s on the up and up now.
It’s onto bigger and better fights now.”
In the SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING co-feature, a pair of hard-hitting
welterweights went toe-to-toe as *Eimantas Stanionis* (13-0, 9 KOs) beat
former world title challenger *Thomas Dulorme* (25-5-1, 16 KOs) via
unanimous decision in a WBA Welterweight Title Eliminator. This was the
most difficult challenge of the rising 26-year-old’s career as Dulorme took
him past the ninth round for the first time. The three ringside judges
scored the fight 115-113, 116-112 and 117-111.
“It’s been a dream since I was a kid watching SHOWTIME to be on this
stage,” said Stanionis. “I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. I’ve had a long
hard journey to get here, but it’s been worth it.”
The two fighters combined for nearly 1,400 punches in their exciting
welterweight battle. Stanionis outlanded the 31-year-old Dulorme 232 to 193
and edged his opponent with higher connection percentages across the board.
Most notably, Stanionis worked well behind his powerful jab, landing 123
total throughout the 12-round fight.
“Dulorme always threw back at me, even if I hurt him,” stated Stanionis,
who is one step closer to becoming Lithuania’s first world champion. “I
knew that if I was wild, he could have caught me with a good shot. I have
more confidence in myself now because I know I can go 12 rounds with a good
fighter. I know how the pressure will hit me now. Anything can happen in
this sport, so I made sure I was prepared coming into this fight.”
In the 10th round, a nasty cut opened above the left eye of Dulorme which
was ruled by referee Harvey Dock to have resulted from a punch. The fight
came to a fantastic finish as the Lithuanian prospect went for the knockout
in the 12th round but the veteran Dulorme did not subdue to the pressure.
In the telecast opener, IBF Junior Bantamweight World Champion *Jerwin
“Pretty Boy” Ancajas *(31-1-2, 22 KOs) successfully defended his title for
the ninth time with a unanimous decision victory over *Jonathan
Rodríguez *(21-2,
16 KOs) in an action-packed 12-round affair. The victory extends Ancajas’
streak of consecutive title defenses to nine, which marks the most of any
current world champion. Fighting out of the Philippines, the 29-year-old
controlled the pace of the fight with a consistent dedication to the body,
where he landed 131 of his 232 total punches.
“I’m very happy to get the win. I waited a long time for the opportunity to
get back in the ring and it’s exciting to win in my first fight on this
stage fighting on SHOWTIME,” said Ancajas. “This was my toughest fight so
far. It was the hardest of any of my nine defenses and it’s exciting that
it was on a big card. I trained hard for this opportunity and it feels
great to get the win.”
The title fight featured back-and-forth action with Mexico’s Rodriguez
pressuring and baiting the champion to fight him at close distance. At the
end of the eighth round, Ancajas finished a flurry of punches with a huge
right hand that sent Rodriguez to the canvas for the first time in his
career.
“I thought he was going to be stopped because I saw him look at his corner
and it didn’t look like he wanted to go on,” continued Ancajas. “But he got
up and fought and I respect him for doing that.”
The ringside judges scored the fight 115-112, 116-111 and 117-110 for
Ancajas, while unofficial ringside scorer Steve Farhood tallied the fight
at 114-113. Farhood agreed with the three official judges in giving the
final three rounds to Rodriguez. Despite dropping the decision, the
25-year-old Rodriguez impressed fight fans with his tremendous
determination and high-level skill in his first world title fight and U.S.
debut.
“I don’t think it was a just decision,” said Rodriguez. “I thought maybe a
split decision, and I would accept it a little more. But we knew coming in
that the judges were against us in this fight.”
On Friday night, BELLATOR on SHOWTIME took center stage at Mohegan Sun
Arena with the first fight of the BELLATOR MMA Light Heavyweight World
Grand Prix that saw current heavyweight champion Ryan Bader avenge his 2012
loss to Lyoto Machida with a dominating unanimous decision to move onto the
next round. Bader made an appearance on Saturday’s SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP
BOXING telecast to reflect on his impressive victory.
“It was very sweet [to get revenge]. It was a gauge to see how far I’ve
grown, since 2012. And I’ve done a lot, and he’s done a lot. So to go out
there and implement my game plan and stick to what we do and go out there
and be victorious, it couldn’t be sweeter.”
Saturday’s SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING telecast will replay Sunday, April
11 at 9 a.m. ET/PT and Tuesday, April 13 at 10 p.m. ET on SHOWTIME EXTREME.
Veteran sportscaster Brian Custer hosted the SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING
telecast while versatile combat sports voice Mauro Ranallo handled
blow-by-blow action alongside Hall of Fame analyst Al Bernstein and
three-division world champion Abner Mares. Three Hall of Famers rounded out
the telecast team: ringside reporter Jim Gray, boxing historian Steve
Farhood as unofficial scorer, and world-renowned ring announcer Jimmy
Lennon Jr. The executive producer was four-time Emmy® award winner David
Dinkins, Jr. The telecast was produced by Raymond Smaltz and directed by
Chuck McKean. Former junior middleweight world champion Raúl “El Diamante”
Marquez and sportscaster Alejandro Luna served as expert analysts in
Spanish on Secondary Audio Programming (SAP).
The event was promoted by TGB Promotions. Ennis vs. Lipinets was promoted
in association with D&D Boxing.
