“You Can Imagine The Number” Spence, Charlo Ask

Eddie Hearn is open to facing Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis against aging former champions Jermell Charlo and Errol Spence in 2026. He predicts that they will have a big ‘number’ to ask for to face ‘Boots’ (35-0, 31 KOs), because they really don’t want that loss on their record.

Charlo and Spence are on the radar

Spence (28-1, 22 KO) is the least likely choice for interim WBA junior middleweight champion Ennis, as he has not fought since his ninth-round loss to Terence Crawford on July 29, 2024. It would take a lot of courage on the part of the 35-year-old Spence to jump straight into a fight against “Boots” after a long layoff.

Hearn’s first choice for Ennis’ next fight in 2026 will be against one of these 154-year-old world champions:

• Sebastian Fundora – WBC
• Abbas Baro – World Boxing Association
• Xander Zayas – World Boxing Organization
• Bakram Murtazaliev – FIFA

If Hearn can’t get one of those fights, he’ll aim to “marquee” Fight against Virgil Ortiz Jr., the interim WBC 154-pound champion.

Jermell: Two years of rust

“The key to ‘Boots’ is the legacy, the championship, and those are the belt holders,” Eddie Hearn told Brian Custer’s YouTube channel. “So, you’ve got Fundora, Zayas, which is a great fight. You’ve got Murtazaliev. You’ve got Abbas Barao, who just won the WBA title. But then you’ve got the other guys who don’t have a belt, but are having a high-profile fight. Virgil Ortiz, Errol Spence, [Jermell] Charlo’s name came up that day as well.

Taking a fight against 35-year-old inactive former junior middleweight champion Jermell (35-2-1, 19 KOs) would result in Ennis receiving a lot of criticism from boxing fans. It would be as if Ennis was raiding an old people’s home, Removing the victim from the clinic To stuff his record with.

Charlo needs to show that he can still fight after two years of inactivity and three years since his last win. He looked absolutely terrible at not putting any effort into his last fight against Canelo Alvarez on September 30, 2023.

The fight against Barao will likely be the easiest for Hearn in “Boots”, but he won’t generate as much interest as if he were to face one of the other belt holders.

“You can imagine the number.”

“Errol Spence and Charlo, you can imagine how much they would ask for the fight because they don’t really want to put this fight on their CV,” Hearn said.

To bring in Spence or Jermell, Hearn couldn’t afford to be stingy and tight with money. He had to dig deep to lure one of these fighters. If Turki Al-Sheikh doesn’t step in, which he probably won’t, it will fall to Hearn.