A win for IBF champion Jaron “Boots” Ennis on April 12 over WBA champion Eimantas Stanionis would earn him a second world title, gain him recognition as the Ring Magazine welterweight champion, and add him to a list of fighters who reigned at 147lbs, including Floyd Mayweather and Sugar Ray Leonard.

“To have my name up there with those guys, I feel like that [would] stamp my name in the welterweight division,” Ennis, 33-0 (29 KOs), said during a documentary infomercial released Monday in advance of his unification bout with Eimantas Stanionis, which will main event on DAZN.

Ennis has the IBF title. Stanionis owns the WBA belt. Ennis has plans. Stanionis does, too, and his plans include ruining what Ennis has in mind.

“They are building a superstar, but I am in the way, and I want to fuck up all their plans,” said Stanionis, 15-0 (9 KOs). “He is a great fighter, good fighter. We all have two legs and two hands. Nobody’s unbeatable.”

Ennis and Stanionis, as with their fellow welterweight titleholders Mario Barrios and Brian Norman Jnr, all owned secondary belts before being upgraded once Terence Crawford abdicated his undisputed championship and vacated his four titles.

Ennis won the interim IBF belt in January 2023 with a shutout of Karen Chukhadzhian. After that, he knocked out Roiman Villa in 10 rounds, was upgraded to the full titleholder in November 2023, and made two defenses; a stoppage of David Avensyan after five rounds and a unanimous decision in a more competitive rematch with Chukhadzhian.

“I always said I wanted to be undisputed champion in the welterweight division,” said Ennis, a 27-year-old from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “I felt like I can’t leave without fighting for a world title. Even though I’m the IBF champion, I never fought for the world title. It was given to me.”

Stanionis, a 30-year-old from Kaunas, Lithuania, became the WBA’s secondary “regular” titleholder by virtue of his April 2022 split decision win over Radzhab Butaev. He made his first defense a little over two years later, winning a unanimous decision over Gabriel Maestre on the May 2024 undercard of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Jaime Munguia. Stanionis was then elevated to the primary titleholder last August.

“It’s like number one against number two. It’s for three belts. So, it’s amazing,” Stanionis said. “It’s big opportunity for me, you know, and I don’t want to sleep on that. He’s great fighter. I am also. So we are going to meet, and we are going to find out on April 12 who’s the better guy.”

The fight will take place at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Both have ties to the city. Ennis has fought in A.C. three times before, most recently for the July 2023 win over Villa. Stanionis, whose family sought to move to the United States when he was young, lived in Philadelphia and visited this part of the Jersey Shore barely an hour down the road.

Stanionis, who represented Lithuania in the 2016 Olympics, has fought his entire pro career in America. He’s had frustrating spells of inactivity, namely that 24-month layoff between the Butaev and Mastre fights. A much anticipated match with Vergil Ortiz Jnr was supposed to happen during that period. That fight never came to fruition. It was postponed multiple times and then canceled because both Stanionis and Ortiz had health issues.

“It’s like very long layover, and I was training all the time hard, and they didn’t [give] me a date,” Stanionis said. “I just waiting waiting waiting. That’s it. It was very hard.”

Now, 11 months after Stanionis beat Maestre, he will no longer need to wait for the kind of opportunity he long desired. It’s why he’s fighting while his pregnant wife approaches her due date.

“I want to prove to myself, because since I was a child I was doubting myself,” Stanionis said. “So I think that’s why I want to prove that I’m the best and I can do this. But also it’s a pressure from the fans [in Lithuania]. Everybody wakes up at 4, 5 a.m. and watch my fights. I want to make my country proud, because they are supporting me. It's pressure for me, but I like that pressure.”

Ennis, meanwhile, is also under the pressure to put forth a standout performance, especially after long being touted as the future of 147lbs. However, Ennis pushed back on his naysayers.

“They criticize everything I do,” he said. “It don’t matter what I do. I can go the distance and beat a guy 12-0, ‘Oh, he should’ve knocked him out.’ When I knock somebody out, ‘Oh, we don’t know if he got a chin.’ They say I get hit too much. I get hit a couple times. I feel like they always going to find something to pick at. I know I’m the best in the world, and I’m just going to continue to keep proving it.”

Ennis’ trainer is his father, Bozy Ennis. Bozy did note a change in his son’s performance as he moved up in the rankings.

“I think Boots got in the habit of knocking everybody out,” Bozy Ennis said. “Then you forget what got you there. Use that jab and box and move. He was doing it, though, but he wasn’t doing it like he normally do. He got so hung up on knocking guys out.”

For whatever doubts some may now have about Ennis, Stanionis is still facing a foe who received far more hype than him. He’s not believing the hype, though.

“We all have flaws,” Stanionis said to Ennis. “We all not perfect, and you know that. We are human beings. We all make mistakes.”

Ennis responded, in essence arguing that he didn’t need to be perfect to beat Stanionis.

“Whatever you think you could do, I do better,” Ennis said. “Fight night, he gonna have a long night.”

David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.