{"id":205951,"date":"2025-06-22T20:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T20:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/205951\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T20:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T20:32:08","slug":"brian-norman-jnr-can-lead-an-exciting-new-era-at-147lbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/205951\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Norman Jnr can lead an exciting new era at 147lbs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Norman Jnr\u2019s knockout of Japan\u2019s Jin Sasaki was very impressive.
Sasaki may not be a proven contender at a time when the welterweight division is short of them, but he\u2019s aggressive and ambitious, and even if he was too open for Norman Jnr and therefore the underdog, the WBO champion was clinical in victory.
He produced a performance that earned the attention of those interested in his profession, and proved that he\u2019s improving, and one of the more refined young champions out there in the world. He also won in Japan as the travelling fighter in unfamiliar, hostile territory, and passed the tests that that involved.
Until the victory over Giovani Santillan in May 2024 we were aware of his talent but wary of his inconsistency. Since then he\u2019s been more convincing \u2013 he\u2019s also beaten Derrieck Cuevas \u2013 and while he will encounter bigger tests than Sasaki, Santillan and Cuevas, he looks likelier than ever to pass those as well.
He\u2019s a young, athletic, powerful fighter. If he can continue to learn and show an improving IQ he has considerable potential. He also requires more experience and, perhaps, maturity, but his growing consistency and personality suggests that that maturity may already be there.\u00a0
Top Rank, Norman Jnr\u2019s promoters, are proven at turning talented fighters into stars. They understand how to turn a prospect into a contender and then a champion, and how to market them throughout that process.
At the moment he has to be considered the most exciting fighter in a welterweight landscape that might just be about to become much more appealing. Norman Jnr, Nicklaus Flaz and Brandun Lee \u2013 who so recently beat Elias Damian Araujo and looks on his way to 147lbs \u2013 are on course to consign Manny Pacquiao and Mario Barrios to the past and can combine for some entertaining fights.
Ryan Garcia and Devin Haney are other big names at 147lbs, but Garcia lost to \u201cRolly\u201d Romero \u2013 who though inconsistent is an ambitious, committed fighter \u2013 and Haney continues to avoid young, hungry opponents of the highest level. Norman Jnr, Flaz and Lee are capable of overtaking them, too.
If Jaron \u201cBoots\u201d Ennis hadn\u2019t just confirmed he plans to move to 154lbs he\u2019d regardless still be considered the world\u2019s best welterweight.
It is, however, tempting to wonder just how hungry he is. His progress was stalled on his way up, when we all knew how much potential he had but he wasn\u2019t getting the opportunities his abilities deserve.
But possible fights against Vergil Ortiz Jnr and Teofimo Lopez have come to nothing \u2013 and while Ortiz Jnr was already at 154lbs when Ennis was at 147lbs, he holds a lot of physical advantages over Lopez, who\u2019d have been his biggest-name opponent.
At 27 years old he\u2019s reaching his physical prime, and there\u2019s little question 147lbs was becoming a struggle for him and so it makes sense for him to move up. I certainly don\u2019t believe that he\u2019s dodging Norman Jnr. But his next moves at 154lbs \u2013 he might even end up at 160lbs \u2013 will therefore tell us a lot about him.
The junior-middleweight division is very different to welterweight. It lacks star power, but it has numerous dangerous fighters \u2013 Ortiz Jnr, Bakhram Murtazaliev, Serhii Bohachuk, Sebastian Fundora, Israil Madrimov, Xander Zayas and Tim Tszyu. Without knowing Ennis\u2019 next move, Ortiz Jnr looks the likeliest star.
Fundora-Tszyu II, on July 19, is one of the many appealing match-ups that exists there. Tszyu was unfortunate to be cut in their first fight in 2024, when he looked on course to win, but since then Fundora\u2019s grown in confidence and Tszyu\u2019s been stopped by Murtazaliev before beating the lesser-known Joey Spencer. It\u2019s difficult to judge how confident Tszyu is, and how much he\u2019s recovered; Fundora not only has confidence, he has momentum. It\u2019s a more interesting rematch today than it would have been if it was made immediately. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brian Norman Jnr\u2019s knockout of Japan\u2019s Jin Sasaki was very impressive.Sasaki may not be a proven contender at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,4495,81914,81915,82898,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-205951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxingscene","10":"tag-brian-norman-jnr","11":"tag-jaron-boots-ennis","12":"tag-paulie-malignaggi","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114728923650594163","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}