Boots Ennis reflects on title win against Xander Zayas in New York

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 27: Xander Zayas (R) throws a punch at Jaron 'Boots' Ennis (L) during their WBO and WBA World Super-Welterweight title bout at Barclays Center on June 27, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Evan Bernstein/Getty Images) | Getty Images A little more time has elapsed since Boots Ennis became unified super welterweight champion by stopping Xander Zayas, and now that he’s had plenty of time to watch back on the fight and reflect, Boots talks about what took place in the ring, those who question Zayas’ heart, and more. Check out some excerpts below with the full video interview at the top. Boots on fighting Zayas as if he wanted to vindicate himself “Going into this fight I already had it set in stone that ‘I’m going to take these belts from the champ’, and that’s what I’m going to do. Yeah, I could’ve sat back, boxed, not get hit, made it look super easy but I’m like ‘I’m going to show the world why I’m the best in the world, show there’s levels to the game.‘ That’s how you take belts from a champion.” On whether he was surprised Zayas fought back so valiantly “We was prepared for whatever he do, whether he was going to box and move or whether he was going to come forward. And we had several different styles in camp for that…We even had southpaws in camp in case he switched southpaw. We was ready for everything.” On the much discussed third round and how badly he was hurt if at all “That third round, I watched it like three times and just me being on some lazy stuff and you can’t do that. You can’t be on lazy type of time but I see what people saying, it looked crazy but if you really sit there and watch it I wasn’t hurt. “When you hurt, you not about to sit there and bang it out and brawl. People going to move, they going to slide off the ropes, they going to try to be on retreat. I wasn’t on no retreat. I was in the pocket right there with him. I was trying to catch him in between shots. “I thought I had a little more space than I did, he just snuck a right hand right in there. It was a clean, nice little right hand, too.” On why he gets lazy defensively in spots “Just getting lazy in moments where it’s too easy and you can’t do that. When it get too easy you got to pick it up, and I’m glad the fight went how it went. That’s nothing but a learning experience for me.” On those who accuse Zayas of quitting “I don’t think he quit. Typically, as you see, when I dropped him I looked at my corner to like get instructions. That’s what people do. They look to the corner to get instructions and maybe he was looking to the corner to try to get some instructions or whether they was trying to tell him anything. So I don’t think he quit. I think he was probably actually going to get up, to be honest. I think he would’ve got up [if the corner didn’t stop it]. I think it would’ve been over that round but I don’t think he quit.” On Vergil Ortiz calling him out after the Zayas win but never available to fight “I went all the way down there, me and Eddie and my brother went all the way down [to Ortiz’s last fight] by ourselves…to let them know we want this fight. They didn’t want to allow us in the ring, the didn’t want us to sit where we was sitting at, they was giving us a hard time…that goes to show they don’t want the fight for real, for real. “Then when he did want it and we get in the ring and they act like they wanted it, we get out the ring, we hear him doing an interview talking about ‘Errol Spence is his dream fight.’ Like, what? It’s like it don’t make sense. Let me had did something like that, everybody would’ve been going crazy if I would’ve fought and then said ‘Danny Garcia is my dream fight.’ Everybody would’ve been going crazy.

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Jaron Ennis talks about his most recent world title win and more.