By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten Carl “The Jackal” Frampton (15-0, 10 KO’s) will be taking a big step up in class on February 9th against EBU super bantamweight champion Kiko Martinez (27-3, 19 KO’s) at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the 25-year-old Frampton this presents a really stiff challenge for him because he’s been matched against less than spectacular opposition since he turned pro in 2009.
Earlier this year, Frampton struggled to beat Raul Hirales by a 12 round unanimous decision in May. Frampton briefly attempted to slug it out with the hard hitting Hirales, but as soon as he found out that he was in with a harder hitter, Frampton played it safe and fought in a dull defensive manner for the remainder of the fight.
In his last fight, Frampton was matched against a past his best former IBF super bantamweight champion Steve Molitor and Frampton was able to beat him by a 6th round TKO win.
Other than those two fights, there’s not much to go on with Frampton. The opposition has been terrible, and he was pretty much exposed in the Hirales fight.
Martinez, 26, is way beyond Frampton in terms of experience and quality of opposition. Martinez picked up the vacant EBU super bantamweight title with a 10th round TKO win over Jason Booth in April of last year. He’s since defended the belt once, beating Arsen Martirosyan by a 12th round TKO last March. In his last fight, Martinez easily beat Dougie Curran by a 6 round decision in a stay busy fight in July.
Martinez, who comes from Spain, has had some problems in his career, losing twice to a young Rendall Munroe and losing to Takalani Ndlovu by a 12 round decision.
Martinez has an impressive 1st round knockout win over Bernard Dunne in August 2007.
I expect Martinez to put the pressure on Frampton early and possibly get a stoppage win in the first five rounds like he did against Dunne. Frampton is pretty basic and really easy to hit.
Comments are closed.