{"id":329129,"date":"2025-12-22T03:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T03:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/329129\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T03:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T03:16:11","slug":"ennis-tszyu-eye-xander-zayas-ahead-of-baraou-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/329129\/","title":{"rendered":"Ennis, Tszyu Eye Xander Zayas Ahead Of Baraou Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cBoys were mentioning something about Zayas. I was like, \u2018Yeah, I\u2019m ready to go now. Give me Xander Zayas now. Let\u2019s go,’\u201d said Tim Tszyu to Jai McAllister<\/a> following his recent 10-round unanimous decision victory over Anthony Velasquez on December 17th. \u201cI just beat one Puerto Rican. Let\u2019s go for the main Puerto Rican.<\/p>\n

Zayas still needs to get past Baraou before he can consider taking a risky fight against Ennis or Tszyu. The German Baraou showed a lot of heart and aggressiveness in his victory over WBA interim 154-lb champion Yoenis Tellez last August. He walked through every punch the Cuba-born Tellez threw to apply pressure on him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Baraou\u2019s willingness to take punches to land his own is what makes him a threat to Zayas. What we don\u2019t know is how well he can deal with the holding that Xander will be using. A big part of Zayas\u2019 game is the punch-and-grab.<\/p>\n

For Abass to land, he\u2019s going to have to peel Zayas off of him because it\u2019s likely going to be a constant thing. Fighters that are good at working a hand free to negate this tactic, it wouldn\u2019t be a problem for him to punish Xander for holding. We don\u2019t know if Baraou is one of those. If not, it\u2019s going to be a long night for him and a potentially boring fight for the fans.<\/p>\n

If Xander can capture the WBA title from Baraou next month, it would make him a two-belt champion, and it would make a fight against \u2018Boots\u2019 or Tszyu even bigger.<\/p>\n

Zayas captured the vacant WBO junior middleweight title, beating Jorge Garcia Perez by a 12-round unanimous decision last summer on July 26th. Xander\u2019s performance was on the dull side, with a lot of holding and moving.<\/p>\n

It was like watching a bigger version of Shakur Stevenson, but with more clinching involved. For Zayas, that was a typical fight for him. He doesn\u2019t have a crowd-pleasing fighting style because he\u2019s unwilling to stand and engage.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason for that is a lack of power. He doesn\u2019t possess the power of the fighters like Ennis, Bakhram Murtazaliev, or even Israil Madrimov.<\/p>\n

Zayas vs. Baraou will headline in a Top Rank-promoted event on January 31 in Zayas\u2019 home country at the\u00a0Coliseo Jose Miguel Agrelot, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

Chris Williams is a senior writer for Boxing News 24, covering the sport since 2013 and reporting ringside from major events worldwide. His coverage dives into both established champions and hungry prospects battling for recognition. Over the years, Chris has contributed to numerous leading boxing outlets, earning respect for his sharp analysis and insider perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBoys were mentioning something about Zayas. I was like, \u2018Yeah, I\u2019m ready to go now. Give me Xander…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-329129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}