By Scott Gilfoid: At Friday’s weigh-in, #1 IBF Chris Avalos (25-2, 19 KOs) reacted instinctively by shoving IBF super bantamweight champion Carl Frampton (19-0, 13 KOs) after the Irish fighter came forward and attempted to ram heads with him during their stare down moments after both fighters had weighed-in.

Avalos was doing little more than trash talking during the stare down when Frampton came forward and lowered his head like a Billy goat and appeared to be on the verge of ramming Avalos with his forehead.

Avalos wasn’t going to play that, so he shoved Frampton hard, sending him flying backwards several feet. Frampton then had to be briefly restrained. Frampton’s manager Barry McGuigan moved forward and gave Avalos a menacing look. Avalos then made a throat slashing gesture while pointing at Frampton.

Frampton later said on his twitter that Avalos’ mother had spit a wad of gum at him. Whether this is true or not is unclear, as it’s not been verified yet.
Other than this bit of turbulence, it was a pretty uneventful weigh-in. Avalos successfully weighed in at 121.9 pounds; whereas Frampton came in right at the super bantamweight limit at 122 pounds.

On another note, Avalos' mother hit me with a bit of chewing gum straight out of her mouth. Lovely lady she is

— Carl Frampton (@RealCFrampton) February 27, 2015

The Frampton-Avalos fight will be taking place this Saturday night at the Odyssey Arena, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

This will be by far the toughest fight of Frampton’s career, as he’s faced a lot of weak opponents and some older fighters. He’s coming off of a grueling 12 round decision victory over the tough Spaniard Kiko Martinez last September. This was the second time the two fighters faced each other, and it turned out to be a really hard bout for Frampton.

In his fight before that, Frampton defeated 36-year-old Hugo Fidel Cazares by a 2nd round knockout last year in April.

Avalos could give Frampton his first real test. Frampton likes to move a lot in order to avoid taking punishment against his opponents, but Avalos is excellent at cutting off the ring and forcing his opponents into brawling with him whether they like it or not.

Frampton isn’t going to be able to run from him the way he did in his fights against Kiko Martinez and Raul Hirales, because Avalos is going to force him into a brawl. If Frampton can handle the pressure then he’ll win, but if he can’t, then I see Avalos chopping him down.

Avalos, 25, has won his last six fights since losing a controversial 10 round split decision to Jhonatan Romero in 2011. Since that fight, Avalos has beaten Jose Cen Torres, Yasutaka Ishimoto, Rolly Lunas, Drian Francisco, Jose Luis Araiza and Yenifel Vicente. Avalos also has a controversial 10 round split decision loss to Christopher Martin in 2010. I had Avalos beating both Martin and Romero, and I see him basically as an undefeated fighter coming into the Frampton fight.

Frampton has talked recently about wanting to fight WBA champion Scott Quigg and WBA/WBO 122 pound champion Guillermo Rigondeaux. While it’s certainly believable that Frampton wants to fight Quigg, it’s very, very hard to believe that Frampton is serious about wanting to fight the talented Rigondeaux. Even if he were serious, it’s hard to see his manager Barry McGuigan saying yes to that fight.