Shawn Porter Says Ennis Isn't Ready for Crawford Just Yet

Jaron Ennis has spent years chasing Terence Crawford, and last week he finally got him in arm's reach — on a TNT Sports panel during Damian Kenya's win over Andy Ruiz Jr. The two traded words on air, with the 36-0 (32 KO) Ennis making it clear he wants to hand Crawford the first loss of a 42-0 career. Two-time welterweight champ Shawn Porter watched it all and came away unconvinced the timing is right.

Porter's verdict, delivered to Sean Zittel afterward, was blunt and a little strange: Crawford is a clean Lamborghini ready to roll, Ennis is a Lambo that hasn't been through the wash yet. His point was that 'Boots' still has to complete the full process — get washed, get polished — before he's a genuine threat. Porter added that he'd said a couple of years back that Crawford had a couple of years' cushion before Ennis became a real problem, and by his math that clock is still ticking.

The Only Bait That Works

Here's the part that actually matters. Porter believes Ennis has exactly one way to lure a retired Crawford back into the ring: sweep the super-welterweight division and become undisputed. Do that, and you're offering Crawford the chance at undisputed gold in a fourth weight class — a historical carrot too big to ignore for a man who already became boxing's first post-war three-division undisputed champion.

Ennis holds the WBA and WBO straps at 154 after brutally taking out Xander Zayas in the seventh round in June, a genuine performance-of-the-year candidate. He moved up from welterweight and unified at his second weight in short order. But undisputed means beating everyone, and the ledger is filling up.

The next step looks like IBF champion Josh Kelly, the 18-1-1 (9 KO) Brit who beat Bakhram Murtazaliev by majority decision. That bout is being floated for before year's end, with the winner expected to face WBC ruler Sebastian Fundora — 24-1-1 (15 KO), fresh off a sixth-round stoppage of Keith Thurman — for all the belts in the first half of 2027.

So the sequencing is clear even if the outcome isn't. Crawford hung up the gloves after outpointing Canelo Álvarez, but he's not exactly walking away quietly — he recently asked fans on social media whether they wanted the Ennis fight made. That's not the behavior of a man who's truly done. If Ennis runs the table at 154, Porter's whole 'unwashed Lambo' framing collapses, and Crawford runs out of reasons to say no.