Cameron Dunkin is not about to fret about the things in his life that are out of his control. That includes matters like the climate, the price of gas, and certain questions about Jaron Ennis’ future.

The last item might seem contradictory. Dunkin is Ennis’ promoter, after all, and a promoter, a competent one at least, is typically obsessed with his fighter’s prospects.

Ennis, of course, is the flashy, 24-year-old welterweight contender out of Philadelphia who broke out of grassroots obscurity last year with a pair of formidable wins over veterans Sergey Lipinets and Thomas Dulorme. Those achievements have had certain corners of the boxing world predicting that he would beat champions Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. if he fought either man today. A tad hyperbolic, perhaps, but the point is there are a lot of people – from fans to industry fixtures –who believe Ennis (28-0, 26 KOs) could be the Next Greatest Thing in American prizefighting. As his promoter, Dunkin, who operated for decades as a manager of elite talent such as Kelly Pavlik, Diego Corrales, Nonito Donaire, Timothy Bradley, and, for a time, Crawford, is responsible in more than one way for charting out Ennis’ future, chief of which is to maneuver him into coveted title shots, on the biggest stages, all the while ensuring his client earns top dollar along the way.

But there are some questions regarding what lies ahead for Ennis to which Dunkin does not currently have answers. And it has to do with the very fact that Ennis is Dunkin’s fighter.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen from day to day. I talk to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and I ask him for guidance and health and things have gone really well,” Dunkin told BoxingScene.com. “He’s had 28 fights and hopefully I can get this worked out.”

In the configuration of the contemporary boxing landscape, a handful of promotional entities hold all the power because they alone have unique access to the appropriate media platforms and their respective, outsize budgets. Top Rank Inc. has an exclusive contract to showcase their fighters on ESPN, Premier Boxing Champions has similar deals with Showtime and FOX, and Matchroom and Golden Boy with DAZN.

For the promoters out there working without a network bankroll, like Dunkin, who otherwise have compelling fighters on their roster, they find themselves in the unpalatable position of having to fork over a portion of the rights [read: money] to their clients to the powers that be in order to get them the opportunities where they stand to maximize their value. It’s the price of doing business, but that does not diminish the grievance of the less-endowed – call them boxing’s pinched middle class –  who see in this arrangement akin to a form of extortion. Many of them justly feel that since they were with their fighters from the beginning, investing in them when no one else did, that they deserve to share in the rewards.

What Dunkin hopes to “work out” is if he must trod down the same path as others in his station have, from Joe DeGuardia to Fernando Beltran to Ken Thompson to Kathy Duva to Lou DiBella, in order for Ennis to get the money and coverage that a talent of his caliber supposedly demands.

At the moment, things appear rosy for Dunkin and Co. Ennis’s last two fights were on Showtime, one as a headliner, the other as a co-feature, and he appeared many times on ShoBox, the network’s long standing series devoted to spotlighting prospects. Clearly, the network’s sports programming president, Stephen Espinoza, is high on Ennis, whose ascent seems unstoppable. But Showtime is also in the midst of an exclusive output deal with the PBC, which is headed by founder Al Haymon, and the understanding is that the top cards are allocated toward Haymon-aligned fighters. Therein lies the nub of Dunkin’s potential predicament: Ennis, despite his presence on Showtime, is not under contract with Haymon or with any of the other sport’s top powerbrokers.

Is it a problem? Dunkin says if it is, it's not one that he necessarily needs to figure out right at this moment. He knows, however, that it is something that will have to be addressed at some point.

“I don’t know if I will do it like I’ve been doing so far, [getting Ennis] the fights on Haymon shows,” Dunkin conceded. “I’ll probably talk to Espinoza and we’ll discuss it and see what can be done.”

DiBella, the longtime New York-based promoter, has offered perhaps the most articulate diagnosis of boxing’s current business paradigm, decrying the daunting conditions that promoters without comfy television subsidies are forced to work under. He condemns the current model as short-sighted and myopic, one that contributes to boxing’s perpetually marginalized status.

“Once one fighter is built by somebody else, there’s an effort to separate them from the people they’ve been with or there is a necessity on the part of the person that developed them to give up part of their asset because it’s an anti-competitive kind of environment,” DiBella told Boxing News in December. “It’s not good for most people in it, including fighters.”

Dunkin is sympathetic to DiBella’s viewpoint, but he does not see much point in kvetching against the current power dynamics in the sport.

"I agree with a lot of things that he says. These guys get these network deals, when these networks should be working with everybody and buying great fights, like HBO once did. But they’re not doing that. I can’t solve that problem. I agree with [DiBella] on that. They get a network and the fighters out there have to be with the ‘big two.’ ESPN, you gotta be with Bob Arum to get on there, believe me, I know that. And you got Fox and Showtime and everybody there is a Haymon fighter. I understand this. I’m not stupid, I think. Maybe I am. But there’s no reason to complain about it. You just have to work out what you do. The networks have chosen to buy the promoter, not the fighters, that’s the truth. So you sign with Haymon, you fight on Fox and Showtime; you sign with Arum and you fight on ESPN," Dunkin said.

Dunkin added, “I know it’s wrong. The networks should be buying everybody’s fighters, like Lou DiBella is saying. Marshall Kauffman, Sampson [Lewkowicz] all work with Haymon. Why [the networks are] doing that is really stupid because they leave out a lot of little [promoters] that that have really good fighters, but we don't see them.”

Dunkin, who also promotes up-and-comers Brandun Lee (24-0, 22 KOs) and Brian Norman Jr. (22-0, 19 KOs), both ShoBox alumni, prefers to look on the brighter, more tangible side of things. He believes Ennis is well-positioned enough within the rankings system of the IBF so that a world title shot is imminent. He notes that Haymon “has the other guy,” top-rated IBF welterweight contender Custio Clayton of Canada. Dunkin believes a Ennis-Clayton match-up would make for a feasible and consequential eliminator.

“We’re going to be fighting for the IBF world title in a couple of fights,” Dunkin said. “We’re already the number one guy in the IBF. [Ennis is] going to get his title chance. That’s gonna happen. I’m not worried about that.

“Everybody says, ‘Oh, Boots needs a big promoter.’ For what? For what? You think he would be better off with anybody else for the last several years than to be on television [on Showtime] seven times? And he’s gonna be fighting in the eliminator for the world title.”

That’s one question Dunkin has accounted for. But there are still plenty more looming ahead, casting indelible shadows on the present. The question of whether or not Dunkin will have to play ball with the sport’s gatekeepers will only swell with each kayo Ennis delivers inside the ring. Dunkin maintains that he is a realist and that he is open to fielding any interesting opportunities, including those from the newer participants of the business, like Probellum. In the end, Dunkin is adamant that he will do whatever is in the best interests of his fighters.

“I’m big headed,” Dunkin said. “I kind of want to do it myself. My guys are busy. They have a lot of fights. They’re active, they’re out there. They can really fight. I think they’re going to be fine. If I have to make a deal with Al, I will. I will sit down with [PBC house promoter] Tom Brown or Probellum, because I love [Probellum chief] Richard Schaefer to death because he was always so great to me back when I had all those guys, eight guys with Showtime.

“Maybe I’ll work with him, maybe I’ll work with Haymon – Well, I’ll work with Tom Brown. Maybe that will have to be done. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I do have to work with them. In the end, I’m gonna do what’s best for my guys.”