By Scott Gilfoid: IBF super bantamweight champion Carl Frampton (21-0, 14 KOs) is blaming his less than impressive 12 round unanimous decision win last Saturday night over #11 IBF Alejandro Gonzalez Jr. (25-2-2, 15 KOs) on him taking off too much weight before the fight in the last two days. Frampton, 5’4”, says he’s going to make a decision about possibly moving up to the featherweight division.
It makes sense for Frampton to move up in weight to 126lbs because the big money fights are up in that weight class against the likes of Abner Mares, Gary Russell Jr., and Leo Santa Cruz.
Frampton likely won’t face Nicholas Walters or Vasly Lomachenko because they’re both with Top Rank, and I doubt that Frampton’s adviser Al Haymon will go in that direction.
“I don’t want to make excuses. I took too much weight off in the last two days,” Frampton said after the fight. We need to make a decision to go from here, and go to featherweight.”
Frampton says he’d like to fight WBA “regular” super bantamweight champion Scott Quigg next if possible, but it remains to be seen if that fight can get made. Frampton and his manager Barry McGuigan will likely push hard to get the fight done because once Frampton moves up to 126, he faces some real tests that could result in him getting beaten several times.
I don’t think for a second that Frampton will stay at 126 if/when he gets beaten for the first time. I see him moving back down in weight to safer waters at 122, because the only guy he has to worry about in that weight class is Quigg. Frampton isn’t likely going to be fighting the top guy like Nonito Donaire, who is promoted by Top Rank, and Guillermo Rigondondeaux, because he’s just so good.
Other than Quigg, Frampton can hang onto his IBF title for a long time defending his title against the most obscure contenders down in that weight class. I mean, there are only a tiny handful of good fighters at super bantamweight right now, and half of them Frampton likely will never face in Rigondeaux and Donaire.
Quigg’s promoter Eddie Hearn believes that Frampton is moving up to featherweight in order to dodge the fight against Quigg. I don’t buy that, but it does look like Frampton needs to move up in weight. He’s heavy for the 122lb weight class. He looked to be in his 130s after rehydrating for the Gonzalez Jr. fight yesterday.
“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.co.uk. “Frampton will now move up to feather as an excuse for avoiding the fight with Scott Quigg.”
It would be a tough fight for Frampton, to be sure. Quigg can punch hard, and he would definitely be putting pressure on Frampton the entire fight. However, I suspect it would be a much different Frampton than what we saw last Saturday.
Frampton would move, box, and pot shot all night long to avoid getting hit by Quigg’s punches. I think it would be a really boring fight, but one that Frampton would win. I don’t know if it’s one that can be successfully negotiated though because it looks like Frampton wants the bigger cut of the purse. I doubt that Hearn will agree to anything less than a 50-50 split of the loot.
“He’s not going to get hit like that and survive the fight,” Hearn said. “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.”
I don’t see Frampton doing well at all in the featherweight division. Like I said, Frampton will stay up there at featherweight long enough for him to get his first loss, and then he’ll scurry back down in weight to super bantamweight and focus on defending against the obscure guys for the remainder of his career. Every now and then, I see Frampton maybe facing someone like Quigg or some other British fighter, but no one really special like Donaire or Rigondeaux.
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