Last night saw ‘the
Jackal’, Carl Frampton unify the super-bantamweight division by defeating Scott
Quigg to win the WBA (super) super-bantamweight title and retain his IBF crown
in front of a packed crowd in Manchester.
Frampton was the busier of the two fighters in the first six rounds with the occasion appearing to be
getting to Quigg. The fighter from Belfast boxed really nicely, controlling the
pace of the fight in the opening stages, jumping in and out of range and not
allowing Quigg to settle. Quigg then came back into the fight winning the
ninth, tenth and eleventh rounds before Frampton won the twelfth in style.
Two judges scored the
bout 116-112 Frampton but one judge, Levi Martinez, scored the fight 115-113
Quigg which was an absolute disgrace. One must remember that this was the same
judge who scored the Canelo-Lara fight 117-111 in favour of Canelo so this
judge should not be scoring any big fights any time soon.
This could have given
the perfect excuse for Sky Sports, Matchroom and Eddie Hearn to make a claim
for the rematch however as Hearn admitted the rematch would be a very tough PPV
sell as the fight simply did not live up to its billing.
The occasion certainly
got to Scott Quigg. He looked like a rabbit in headlights for the first six
rounds as he barely threw any punches let alone land anything. It was only when
Gallagher was told that Sky had it 6-1 to Frampton after seven that he really
told Quigg to start letting his hands go.
Boxing on the back
foot, Quigg looked very ordinary. He kept loading up on his shots, which
Frampton easily avoided, and his footwork was especially bad. He did land one
big right hand in the eleventh which rocked Frampton and he hit him with a couple a good body shots but it was simply just not enough.
The question now is
where do both the fighters go from here. For Quigg, it is back to drawing
board, however he is still ranked highly by the WBA and the IBF so a potential
rematch could be on the cards if he gets himself into a mandatory position.
For Frampton, fight
fans will want to see him take on the best fighter at super-bantamweight,
Guillermo Rigondeaux, however this looks unlikely so it looks as if he will
vacate his WBA title immediately. He could defend his IBF title against mandatory,
Shingo Wake however it looks more likely that he will move up to featherweight.
He has many options up
there however a fight with Leo Santa Cruz who is also with Al Haymon could be
on the cards. Frampton could do a number on Santa Cruz but Frampton’s division
is at super-bantamweight. In my opinion, Frampton just simply does not have the
build to be beating the true featherweights such as Lee Selby and Vasyl
Lamachenko as they would both take him to school.
The main thing for
Frampton is that he has put his name in the mix with all these fighters and
there are endless possibilities for him now. It was an easy night’s work for
the Northern Irishman, as most expected it would be, who just looked a level
above Quigg.
Tom Eckett
@boxingguru44
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