Last night in Texas, IBF 122 lb champion Carl Frampton overcame an early scare against Mexico’s Alejandro Gonzalez Jr, surviving two flash knockdowns in the opening stanza, to bully his way back into a hard fought and deserved UD win against a fighter who looked a whole lot better than “the 11th best 122 lb fighter in Mexico” as Matchroom Sport’s Eddie Hearn delightfully splashed over his twitter in acknowledgement of the pre-fight world rankings.
Hearn, who promotes Frampton’s domestic, divisional rival Scott Quigg is certain that following the performance, the Northern Irishman wants no part of his fighter, and cites Frampton’s trainer saying he will possibly move up to featherweight, as a sure sign of that reluctance.
“I think if Frampton is getting knocked over twice by the 11th best super-bantamweight in Mexico, he ain’t going to last six rounds with Scott Quigg,” Hearn said via ‘The Mirror’
“Frampton will now move up to feather as an excuse for avoiding the fight with Scott Quigg.”
“He’s not going to get hit like that and survive the fight. And after this, they’ll know that even more, so the obvious move for them would be to move to feather. We’ve got other plans anyway.”
Frampton survived considerable moments of success from the visibly larger Gonzalez throughout the early part of the fight, and was forced to draw on his grit, courage and high ring IQ to thwart the traps the Mexican continually tried to set as the action wore on.
Eventually, the class began to show and following Gonzalez losing 2 points for low blows, the result soon became a foregone conclusion, with Frampton getting the UD in front of the partisan, pro-Mexican crowd.
“I think I need to sit down and re-evaluate where I go from here. I had a lot of weight to take off on the day of the weigh-in, too much, more than ever. Maybe I got it wrong? I don’t know.” said Frampton immediately post-fight to assembled media.
“I heard Scott Quigg won as well. That’s a good win for him, that’s a very good win for him, and it swings again now where some people are thinking Frampton wins, others are probably thinking Quigg wins – but that’s boxing.”
Trainer Shane McGuigan was reflective, yet upbeat, and was still full of praise for his fighter, insisting a move up is very possible;
“He’s 28, he’s full of muscle, not an ounce of body fat on him. He’s huge for the weight, we need to re-evaluate what we take out of it. Maybe move up to featherweight? We’re out of our comfort zone, away from home – there’s stuff that we would normally do but it’s different over here, so there’s a couple of lessons learned.”
“He showed some serious courage and some serious focus to get through that, and if you look at those knockdowns, they were flash knockdowns and that was a sign of somebody who’s still aware but maybe there’s a problem with the weight?”
Twitter @Undilutedpoison
