By Scott Gilfoid: EBU super bantamweight champion Kiko Martinez (27-3, 19 KO’s) expects the younger and inexperienced Carl Frampton (15-0, 10 KO’s) to be running for survival in their fight on February 9th at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Martinez believes Frampton won’t even try to mix it up with him for fear of getting hurt by something big.
Martinez said to Sky Sports “I feel I will be by knockout…I think Frampton will try to run. I think he’ll box and he won’t go toe-to-toe. I know I’m a lot stronger than him. When I’m in the ring with him, he won’t want to fight me.”
I disagree with Martinez on one point. I do think Frampton will attempt to mix it up early in the fight to test what Kiko’s got in the way of power. If you look at Frampton’s only other opponent with big power that he’s faced during four-year pro career, Raul Hirales, Frampton tried to go one-on-one with Hirales early in the fight, but after getting a taste of Hirales’ bigger power, Frampton put on his track shoes and pretty much ran the remaining 11 rounds of the fight.
Whenever Frampton would try and stand his ground, however, Hirales would get the better of him with his stronger shots. Kiko is a step up in the power department and HUGE step up in the talent department from what Frampton faced in the Hirales fight. I think it’s going to be really tough on Frampton because he won’t be able to go toe-to-toe with Kiko because of his superior power, and he’s not going to be able to count on trying to out-box the highly skilled Martinez because he’s the better boxer compared to Frampton by far.
Martinez, 26, says he relishes the idea of beating Frampton in front of Frampton’s own Irish fans in this fight because it’s going to be pretty much mostly Frampton fans at this fight.
On the undercard of this fight will be middleweight Andy Lee (28-2, 20 KO’s) trying to get his career back together with a tune-up fight against Anthony Fitzgerald (13-3, 4 KO’s) in a 10 round fight.
Lee, 28, is with a new trainer Adam Booth after his old trainer Emanuel Steward passed away recently. Lee is coming off of a 7th round knockout loss to former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. last year in June, and Lee wants to put that defeat behind him as he tries move forward with his career and hopefully improve enough to get another world title shot and be successful at it.
For that to happen, Lee is going to have to learn to be a little smarter in the ring given that he was completely ignoring all the advice that Steward was giving him in the Chavez Jr. fight concerning the need for Lee to box instead of slug. If Lee can’t learn to use his skills instead of his muscle, it doesn’t matter how many tune-ups he takes, he’s never going to be a world champion.
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