Jaron Ennis felt like his timing was a bit off Saturday night.
Well, it was hard to tell. The IBF welterweight world champion put on a sweet science show at Wells Fargo Center in front of his hometown Philadelphia crowd, and live on DAZN, producing a TKO of a rugged David Avanesyan. After dropping Avanesyan with a counter left in the fifth round, the referee stopped the bout on advice of a ringside physician before the sixth round could start, awarding Ennis with the TKO victory and successful title defense.
From the opening bell, "Boots" Ennis showed that he had too much firepower and way too many skills for Avanesyan to compete with and the champ kept increasing his output as the fight went on.
Whether it was tripling up on an uppercut or seamlessly segueing between depositing pointed shots to the body and wrapping hooks around Avanesyan's guard, Ennis was levels above his challenger and it showed glaringly.
Even when Avanesyan had success with a raking right hook across Ennis' jaw in the fifth round, "Boots" immediately fired back with a sharp counter left that dropped the Armenian fighter with a thud.
When Avanesyan beat the count, he was subjected to more punch punishment from the champ until the round came to a merciful end and the bout was soon stopped thereafter.
By the end of the fight, Ennis had nearly tripled Avanesyan's punches landed at 152 to 53, resulting in a 46 percent clip for the hometown hero.
So much for his timing being off.
"If he thinks that performance was off," his promoter Eddie Hearn said, "well, the world of boxing better be very, very afraid."
Following the utter dismantling of Avanesyan, Ennis declared that he wants a fight with pound-for-pound great Terence Crawford.
Here's how the entire Ennis-Avanesyan main card went.