By Scott Gilfoid: Just as I expected, WBA 122 pound strap holder Scott Quigg (28-0-1, 21 KOs) prefers to face IBF super bantamweight champion Carl Frampton in England rather than Belfast, which is where Frampton’s manager Barry McGuigan wants the fight to take place.
Quigg has a title defense coming up next week on September 13th that he has to get out of the way first against bantamweight Stephane Jamoye (26-5, 16 KOs) that he has to get out of the way first before he can think seriously about fighting Frampton in a unification fight, and even then, the IBF is going to need to give Frampton permission to bypass his #1 IBF mandatory challenger Chris Avalos for the fight against Quigg to happen.
“I was pleased to see Carl win the title on Saturday and now it makes perfect sense for us to fight,” said Quigg. “I’ll fight him in Belfast, no problem – but 9,000 in Belfast versus 20,000 in Manchester, it makes more sense to do it there. If they can find somewhere in Belfast with 20,000 then I can go there, I don’t care.”
It’s hard to argue with what Quigg is saying. If he can pull in the bigger audience in Manchester then why the heck would he want to travel to fight in front of a smaller audience in Belfast, especially if very few of his fans will be there to see him fight. It doesn’t make sense.
Ideally, the Quigg vs. Frampton fight needs to take place in a neutral venue so that neither side can gain any benefit. If they were to stage the fight in someplace like the United States or Canada, then neither of them can have anything to complain about later on. The gate obviously won’t be as big if the fight is staged outside of the UK, but least neither guy can gain from it in terms of judging or fan applause.
If it was me, I wouldn’t want to fight in a venue where I was going to be in front of 100% fans from the other fighter. I wouldn’t take the chance of being robbed. It would have to be a neutral venue. What good is it to get a huge payday if you end up getting a controversial decision loss while getting booed the entire time.
Quigg said “It’s one of the biggest fights in British boxing alongside Amir Khan and Kell Brook – it’s that big, everyone has an opinion. We both think we can win so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t fight – and I know that I will come out with both belts.”
I really don’t see a Quigg vs. Frampton fight as being a huge, huge fight. I mean, I think it’ll sell out the Manchester Arena, but forget about staging it at the Wembley Stadium in London, That would likely be a nightmare if they put the fight there. My guess is the fight would bring in maybe 16,000 fans at bet, and the there would likely over 60,000+ unsold tickets. Someone would take a bath on that one, I believe.
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