{"id":885318,"date":"2026-09-06T08:26:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T08:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/885318\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T08:26:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T08:26:19","slug":"terence-crawford-names-who-jaron-boots-ennis-must-beat-to-earn-full-respect-ill-give-you-your-props","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/885318\/","title":{"rendered":"Terence Crawford names who Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis must beat to earn full respect: “I’ll give you your props”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Terence Crawford<\/a> has criticised Josh Kelly as an opponent for Jaron \u2018Boots\u2019 Ennis, who he believes must prove himself against a higher calibre of fighter.<\/p>\n

The American is reportedly in advanced negotiations for a three-belt unification match with Kelly, having dethroned Xander Zayas with a seventh-round stoppage in June<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In doing so, Ennis became a two-division unified champion<\/a> by claiming the WBO and WBA world titles, with many regarding him as the top dog at 154lbs.<\/p>\n

Kelly, meanwhile, claimed his IBF belt by dethroning Bakhram Murtazaliev with a majority decision victory in January, before unanimously outpointing Caoimhin Agyarko last month.<\/p>\n

It therefore appears likely that the two champions, who are both signed to Eddie Hearn\u2019s Matchroom Boxing, will square off towards the end of 2026.<\/p>\n

As far as Crawford is concerned, however, Ennis cannot be considered the king of his division until he defeats either WBC champion Sebastian Fundora or top contender Vergil Ortiz Jr.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Boots live on DAZN and TNT Sports<\/a>, the former three-division undisputed champion said this is the only way that the 29-year-old can receive full credit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you step on Fundora, I\u2019ll give you your props. If you step on somebody like Vergil, I\u2019ll give you your props. Josh Kelly [has] already been knocked out by a person that you knocked out [David Avanesyan].\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly did, indeed, get stopped in round six of his encounter with Avanesyan, yet this defeat arrived while the Brit was seemingly struggling to make 147lbs in 2021.<\/p>\n

Since then, the 32-year-old has proved himself at world level and can therefore be considered a worthy opponent for Ennis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Terence Crawford has criticised Josh Kelly as an opponent for Jaron \u2018Boots\u2019 Ennis, who he believes must prove…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-885318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}