‘He’s gonna knock you out’: Bradley says Boots not ready for Crawford

Tim Bradley says Jaron Ennis is too inexperienced and reckless to deal with Terence Crawford.

Now that Terence Crawford has claimed supremacy over Errol Spence, everyone is wondering where his next challenge could come from. So when IBF interim titleholder Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis was floated as possible the next best opponent for Crawford to face, Bradley quickly shut that down.

“You kidding me right now?” Bradley said. “I respect Ennis. Listen, I respect Ennis, I love his pops, his pops is cool. His whole crew is tight. But who the hell has Boots fought?! You can be riding that wave, you’ve been getting these knockouts of all these other different guys, but you’ve never been in the ring with an animal like Crawford.

“And when you get in there you get hit upside your head and you see you can’t do the stuff that you usually do against the guys that you fought at the lower level — bro, I would hate for him to get into that type of fight with Crawford, I would hate for him to get in this fight and look average.

“Because if you go back and you watch a lot of — and he’s a spectacular fighter, Boots is a spectacular fighter, I’m a fan. I’m a fan of Boots, I think he’s next. But he needs to be tested. He needs to be tested with a legit — he needs to be tested with a guy like Thurman. I wish Shawn Porter was still around. He needs to be tested with a guy like Shawn Porter, a Danny Garcia, you know, veterans, top veterans out there that can punch, guys that can think with him.

“He needs to be tested with guys like that before I say ‘oh yeah, he ready for Crawford’...(he) makes a lot of mistakes, shows a lot of inexperience rushing in there and trying to go for the kill leaving himself wide open, leaving himself exposed. And there’s a lot of things that come along with that.

“And guess what? When you get into the ring with a Crawford that knows how to use his feet, that knows how to move and let you come to him and so on and so forth, that’s when he gonna set you up, he’s gonna lay a trap, and he’s gonna catch you, he’s gonna knock you out.

“You heard it here, folks...ya’ll didn’t believe me the first time and you ain’t got to believe me now. Have your own opinion, but this is my assessment from a fighter that — hey, Hall of Famer, I’ve done it, I’ve been in the ring with Crawford, know what he’s capable of doing, bro. Trust me. And I knew he would get to this point sooner than later.”