ABSOLUTELY a great fight for boxing last Saturday. In the main event between Xander Yarob Zayas Castro (known as Xander Zayas) and Jaron “Boots” Ennis for the former’s unified WBA and WBO super welterweight world titles at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, Zayas showed incredible ability, heart — everything you want to see in a fighter — except defensive reflex, and I’ll tell you why.
The cursed, “You’re the bigger man” thought patterns.
I wasn’t there, but I bet it started in training.
Whenever you start your game plan based on that inaccurate adage, “You’re the bigger man!”, you’re in for a hard-ass night. Especially if your opponent is talented.
Exhibit One: Boots is crazy-talented.
And you can never shift out of that frame of thought because to suddenly start moving, boxing, and respecting your opponent mid-fight, means “you aren’t a big enough man” and your trainer may have game-planned wrong.
Meanwhile, your opponent is fighting you correctly because he respects the fact that you’re heavier, so he’s operating on “High Alert”.
It never fails. Hank Armstrong, James Toney (when he moved up in weight), Roy Jones, Sugar Ray Leonard, Michael Spinks, Manny Pacquiao. TERRENCE CRAWFORD. They all did it giving up significant weight advantages.
Whenever smaller fighters step up, trainers of the bigger fighter negate their fighter’s capacity to think, and it’s insane. You’re asking your fighter to shelve the tools he developed to get to where he is, in order to be aggressive without thought.
It blows my mind.
Trainers gotta understand that just because a fighter is lighter, it doesn’t mean the punches don’t hurt. (Kinda like the heavier gloves concuss you easier, concept of thought)
Sure, you can push your opponent around the ring more effectively, but you don’t get points for pushing — and you’re always gonna get punched before you can push.
Now, Boots is crazy-talented. In fact both fighters are. And that’s absolutely because of their trainers. They’re similar in many ways… courage, heart, ability to throw diverse combos… But the moment the fight started and Boots hit him with a triple jab, Boots said, “I’m not even gonna need this.” He put the jab and “safety first” approach to the fight, away and just rolled out the heavy artillery. Which made the fight exciting because he put himself precisely in harms way, got caught as well and over came many 12 ounce obstacles.
Now, Boots is intelligent but he’s not a safety-first fighter. He is willing to put his physical health on the line in order to win and entertain the fans. I can appreciate that. He’s got a certain Sugar Ray Robinsonesque thing, about him.
A devil-may-care-but-I-don’t attitude, that’s refreshing. He’s the Anti-Floyd.
Yes I know, we all have a different way to “hunt”. Floyd is defense-first. Boots is obviously offense-first. Boots’ approach is great for the fans, but not for the cradle of your brain. Let’s see how this one plays itself out.
In summary, with that incredible display of fisticuffs last night, Boots skyrocketed into the pound-for-pound conversation and his star has more wattage than ever.
The great thing is, Zayas didn’t hurt his potential to earn, either. In-fact, he enhanced it. I’d pay to see him vs the Towering Inferno, Sebastian Fundora. That’s a helluva fight.
100%SILK.