It’s easy to root for Chris van Heerden in and out of the boxing ring

As Chris van Heerden gets ready to enter the ring against Jaron Ennis, he feels fortunate to be in a position to box despite all the turmoil he has faced. 

Welterweight boxer Chris van Heerden enters the ring in a few hours on Saturday, Dec. 19, against undefeated rising contender Jaron Ennis. The odds are heavily against van Heerden, but he brings an optimistic and calm perspective headed into possibly the biggest fight of his career.

Van Heerden, originally from South Africa, has endured a lot over the last two years. His father, Daniel, was murdered in South Africa on Dec. 27, 2018.

In March of 2019, van Heerden spoke to FanSided about the details of his father’s murder.

“The man walked around the car to my brother, and that’s when my dad did what every father would do and that to move around the car and cover my brother outside the car with his butt towards the guy,” van Heerden told FanSided. “For 10 seconds, nothing happened. The guy was pointing the gun at my dad, and my dad just stood about my brother, and he heard a gunshot, and that’s when the guy shot my dad in the back.”

Two years since the murder of van Heerden’s father, the case is still pending, and the man charged with the crime walks around free.

“The court case is still pending,” van Heerden recently told FanSided. “I mean, it’s a joke that the guy that took my dad’s life is still sitting at home, and it’s almost, this month will be two years, and the case is still, still up in the air. I mean, it’s ridiculous but, but I’m in a good place. So that’s, that’s, that’s all that matters.”

Justice hasn’t been served in the case of Daniel van Heerden, and his family painfully waits for the justice system to do its job. Van Heerden is mentally and emotionally in a good place today, but the pandemic’s solitude forced him to grieve his father’s loss. He thought he dealt with the emotions that surround his father’s murder, but he hadn’t.

Chris van Heerden and his family suffered a tragic loss, but he took the time to heal emotionally

“I didn’t realize that I didn’t grieve the loss of my dad because I kept myself so busy,” confided van Heerden. “So once we went into a lockdown, and we got stuck at home, and really everything goes down, and there was really nothing going on. All of a sudden, I realized I have not grieved my dad. I got the time to grieve my dad properly. So that was a beautiful thing.”

As van Heerden began to deal with the emotions of his father’s loss, he also had to deal with the business end of his boxing career. Van Heerden was signed to Top Rank but didn’t see any action in 2020. The pandemic had something to do with that, but van Heerden was also dissatisfied that he never got a shot at WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford.

“The reason why we joined Top Rank was because they had Terence Crawford, and we wanted a shot at a world title again, and they had Terence Crawford,” said van Heerden.

According to van Heerden, he was promised a fight with Crawford for his third fight with Top Rank, but that wasn’t happening. In August, van Heerden and Top Rank had a clean break. Now a free agent, van Heerden got the chance to fight Ennis for the IBO welterweight title on Showtime.

Ennis (26-0, 24 KOs) is one of the most dangerous young fighters in all of boxing. His combination of speed, skill, and knockout power has others staying away, but van Heerden didn’t blink at accepting the fight against Ennis.

“I’m a fighter, and it’s my job. And I’ve never shied away,” said van Heerden confidently.

Van Heerden (28-2-1, 12 KOs) is a significant underdog against Ennis. At 33 years old, van Heerden is ten years older than his opponent but realizes that this is his shot at making noise in boxing and winning back a title he once held.

Van Heerden feels like he has the ability and experience to pull off the upset against Ennis. It has been five years since his last loss against Errol Spence Jr., and he has gained a wealth of boxing knowledge along the way.

“I’ve learned a lot over the last five years, and we will see,” said van Heerden. “It will show in the fight.”

Van Heerden embodies the fighting spirit that you want to see in a boxer, but he also has a big heart and a positive outlook on life that makes you like him as a person. He has been through a lot over the years, but van Heerden is coming out on the other side as a stronger person.

Watch Chris van Heerden vs. Jaron Ennis on Saturday, Dec. 19, on Showtime starting at 9 p.m. ET.