This weekend, Xander Zayas will try and unify junior middleweight titles against Abass Baraou. It is just not a placeholder bout, and it is just not being staged within the shadow of a scheduled super fight. It is going on because belts can be found and the division continues to maneuver whether its two biggest names ever share a hoop.
Unification doesn’t pause for negotiations elsewhere. It changes who has to act next and who can afford to attend.
Zayas continues to be young and still developing, but his profession is just not on hold while talks stretch longer than expected. Baraou is just not arriving to make up the numbers. He earned his title by upsetting Yoenis Tellez and forcing the difficulty late, including a knockdown that removed any doubt. It is a real fight with real consequences in a division that keeps reshaping itself while its headline matchup stays unresolved.
At the highest, Ennis and Ortiz live on as an idea fairly than an event. Ortiz’s legal dispute with Golden Boy has added friction to a process that was already slow. There isn’t a firm timeline, no signed date, and no guarantee the landscape waiting for them will look the identical if an agreement is eventually reached.
Patience from the surface can quietly turn right into a lost position contained in the sport. Divisions don’t stop functioning while marquee fights are negotiated. Belts move. Mandatory positions shift. Fighters age into and out of advantage.
Junior middleweight is deep enough to soak up that delay. It doesn’t have to stop operating to guard the thought of an ideal fight. Zayas against Baraou is just not presented as a solution to every part. It shows the division continuing to operate while its biggest bout stays theoretical.
If Ennis and Ortiz meet, the fight will still carry weight. The longer it stays on paper, the less accurate it becomes to treat every part else as secondary.
The division has already moved once. It could not wait to maneuver again.