Terence Crawford Says Boots Ennis Is Ducking Vergil Ortiz

Terence Crawford keeps telling everyone he's retired. The 42-0 pound-for-pound star, fresh off a unanimous decision over Canelo Álvarez, says he isn't motivated to lace them up again. And yet he can't seem to stop poking Jaron 'Boots' Ennis on his way out the door.

Appearing on Ring Champs, Crawford addressed the running back-and-forth with Ennis. He's floated the idea of returning to face Boots, and when Boots said he'd take the fight, Crawford flipped it into a talking point: that Ennis will chase anyone except Vergil Ortiz at 154. According to Crawford, the whole thing was never a genuine callout — just a way to expose who's really dodging whom.

The Josh Kelly Problem

Crawford's sharpest jab was aimed at the way Ennis has framed the division. He took issue with the claim that Josh Kelly is the most skillful fighter at super welterweight, calling it flat-out untrue. Crawford's read is simple: Ennis is talking Kelly up because a fight with Kelly is on the table, not because Kelly is the toughest name out there.

The stat that backs Crawford's point is his own résumé. He said he knocked Kelly out cold, and pointed out David Avanesyan did the same. Kelly, now 18-1-1 (9 KO), holds an IBF belt and just edged Bakhram Murtazaliev on a majority decision — a solid win, but not the same as being the man in the division. Crawford's argument: building Kelly into the boogeyman conveniently ignores who else is waiting.

'Call a Spade a Spade'

Crawford framed it as belt-hunting rather than legacy-building, and he made a point of separating himself from that approach. He said no one could ever accuse him of ducking a challenge across his entire career, and that if he'd ever pulled a move like that, it'd be common knowledge by now. Coming from a fighter who cleaned out multiple divisions before beating Canelo, it's a hard record to argue with.

Whether any of this leads to Crawford actually returning is another question — he insists it won't. For now, the value in his comments is the pressure it puts on Ennis to make the fights fans actually want. Ortiz at 154 remains the obvious one, and Crawford clearly isn't going to let it slide quietly.