By Scott Gilfoid: WBA featherweight belt holder Carl Frampton (23-0, 14 KOs) gives himself the advantage over challenger Leo Santa Cruz (32-1-1, 18 KOs) for their rematch tonight on Showtime Championship Boxing at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Frampton believes it comes down to him now having more experience at fighting at featherweight, and his previous 12 round majority win over the American last July. Frampton barely won that fight.
(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime)
It came down to two of the judges scoring it wide for Frampton, but it was oddball scoring that made little sense to boxing fans. Frampton by the scores 117-111, 116-112 and 114-114. I had Santa Cruz edging the fight based on his superior work from rounds 5 through 12. Santa Cruz took over the fight with his pressure, and ended up wearing down Frampton in the second half of the fight.
While Frampton believes he’s going to have a “psychological edge” over Santa Cruz because of his past win, I think it’s more wishful thinking on his part. Santa Cruz isn’t unnerved from his previous loss to Frampton. It’s not going to prevent Santa Cruz from fighting hard.
If anything, it’s going to make Santa Cruz fight harder to make sure that he does enough this time to get the win. The mistake Santa Cruz made the last time he fought Frampton was starting too slowly in terms of pressuring him. If Santa Cruz had started earlier with his pressure, he would have won the fight. Heck, Santa Cruz still appeared to win the fight, but the judges saw it differently. If you look at the boxing forums in the Net, the fans saw Santa Cruz the winner of the fight in many cases.
“Going into this fight, I have the psychological edge,” Frampton said via skysports.com. “This is my second fight at featherweight, so I’m getting more used to the weight. I feel more comfortable overall this time. It means absolutely nothing to me that I am fighting him here. I am going to beat him again but this time more convincingly.”
Well, given the fact that Frampton didn’t appear to beat Santa Cruz last time, I don’t know if he can win “more convincingly” as he says. It would be nice if Frampton won for a change without controversy. That would a good thing, I think. The boxing fans don’t need to see the loser of the fight getting his hand raised over and over again.
If Frampton is going to win tonight, then he needs to actually win and not get another gift decision. Frampton can accomplish that by not gassing out in the last seven rounds of the fight like he did last time. I would hope that Frampton worked on his stamina issues so that he could fight hard for three minutes of every round rather than just the first minutes.
That’s what Frampton was doing the last time he fought Santa Cruz. He would fight hard for the first minute, and then gas out and get belted around the ring in the last two minutes by Santa Cruz. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if Frampton can improve his stamina.
If Frampton wasn’t able to fight hard for the full 12 rounds the last time and in his previous fight against Scott Quigg, then this would indicate more of a permanent problem for Frampton that is resistant to improvement. When a fighter is unable to fight hard for a full 12 rounds despite their attempts at improving their conditioning in training camp, then they’re stuck with that flaw in their game. My advice to Frampton is for him to try and build up as much of a lead against Santa Cruz in the first six rounds that he can tonight, so he can hopefully steal a round or two in the second half after he gasses out.
I don’t think it matters that this is Frampton’s second fight at featherweight. If he’s the better fighter, then he’ll win, but it won’t come down to him fighting for the second time in the division. That’s wishful thinking on Frampton’s part. If he needs to help boost his courage and confidence by telling himself that he’ll win because of more experience at the weight, then it’s a sign of desperation.
“I can use my distance and box if I wanted to,” said Santa Cruz. “But I want to brawl. I’m going to do a little bit of everything.”
Santa Cruz needs to forget about boxing Frampton. He tried to do that the last time he fought him in the first five rounds, and it was a disaster for him. Frampton dominated him with his better outside game. Santa Cruz couldn’t land his jabs from the outside, and Frampton was able to get him over and over again to land single shots. To his credit, Santa Cruz was able to counter Frampton some of the time with his looping punches, but it wasn’t frequent enough for him to win rounds.
Santa Cruz didn’t start doing well until he began to take the fight to Frampton with pressure in the last seven rounds. That approach worked well for Santa Cruz, because he was able to force Frampton into a close range fight, which favored him. Frampton tried his best to compete with the younger Santa Cruz on the inside, but he didn’t have the youth or the boxing skills to fight effectively. Santa Cruz looks to be at least four to five years younger than Frampton. The difference between is pretty startling. There’s only one year difference between Frampton and Santa Cruz’s age, but I see Santa Cruz as the much younger fighter. I don’t think Frampton is aging well. He looks more like someone in his early 30s than a fighter at 29.
Santa Cruz believes that he’s going to beat Frampton and force a trilogy fight. The only way that a third fight won’t be needed is if there’s a knockout either way. If one of these guys gets knocked out, then the winner needs to move on to bigger, and better things.
Both fighters looked good at their weight-in on Friday in coming in at 125lbs. Santa Cruz looked like a giant standing next to Frampton when the two of them stood facing each other. The height difference is dramatic.