WASHINGTON – Jaron Ennis expressed respect for Gervonta Davis.

The emerging Ennis recognizes that Baltimore’s Davis is one of the sport’s most entertaining knockout artists and popular draws. Ennis still hopes the nature of his victory over Karen Chukhadzhian causes a stir Saturday night on the Davis-Hector Luis Garcia undercard at what figures to be a packed Capital One Arena.

“Shout out to Tank and them, but you know, I’m here to take over this show,” Ennis told BoxingScene.com. “You know, I’m looking to have the best knockout and the best performance January 7th on Showtime Pay-Per-View.”

Whereas Davis (27-0, 25 KOs) will encounter an undefeated world champion in Garcia (16-0, 10 KOs, 3 NC), Philadelphia’s Ennis is an enormous favorite versus unproven Ukrainian Chukhadzhian. The ambitious Ennis (29-0, 27 KOs, 1 NC) had hoped to face an opponent with whom American boxing fans are much more familiar, but Chukhadzhian (21-1, 11 KOs) was the highest-rated available contender in the IBF rankings and, unlike many welterweights, was willing to face Ennis.

The 25-year-old Ennis, who is the IBF’s number one-ranked 147-pound contender, expects a win against Chukhadzhian to either force unbeaten IBF champion Errol Spence Jr. to fight him or vacate one of his three welterweight titles. Chukhadzhian is ranked fourth by the IBF, but the second spot in its welterweight ratings is unoccupied and third-ranked Vergil Ortiz Jr. (19-0, 19 KOs) will challenge WBA world welterweight champ Eimantas Stanionis (14-0, 9 KOs, 1 NC) on March 18.

Ennis has repeatedly stated that he wants to fight Spence (28-0, 22 KOs), who owns the IBF, WBA and WBC belts, and Terence Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs), the WBO champion. If neither Spence nor Crawford will fight him, however, Ennis probably will be left to fight for unclaimed championships as long as he remains in the 147-pound division.

“I’d rather take a belt from the champ,” Ennis said, “but if I gotta fight for the vacant belt, that’s fine with me. I’ll collect all the belts at 147 and make my way to 154. It don’t really matter to me. As long as I become a world champion at 147 and become undisputed at 147, and then do the next thing at ’54, and do the same thing at ’60, and maybe the same thing at 68, too, that’s my goal.”

The 12-round bout between Ennis and Chukhadzhian will be the co-feature of Showtime Pay-Per-View’s four-fight telecast Saturday night. Most sportsbooks list Ennis as at least a 35-1 favorite over Chukhadzhian. 

Baltimore’s Davis and the Dominican Republic’s Garcia, who owns the WBA 130-pound championship, will fight for Davis’ WBA world lightweight title in the 12-round, 135-pound main event ($74.99; 9 p.m. ET).

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.