By Scott Gilfoid: #1 WBC, #2 IBF, #9 WBO, Carl Frampton (18-0, 13 KO’s) will be challenging IBF super bantamweight champion Kiko Martinez (31-4, 23 KO’s) for his IBF 122 lb. strap in a rematch on September 6th in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Frampton stopped Martinez in the 9th round in a competitive fight last year in February 2013 in Belfast.
The fight was pretty much an even fight until Frampton caught Martinez with a shot to the head in the 9th that knocked him out. At that point in the fight, Martinez was getting to Frampton and it looked like Martinez was on his way to victory.
Frampton had been hoping recently to get a shot at WBC super bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz next, but Santa Cruz is heading in the direction of a unification fight against WBA strap holder Scott Quigg first. Santa Cruz wants to take the bigger fight against Quigg so that he can have his WBA strap in his collection before fighting Frampton in 2015, provided that he gets passed Kiko Martinez in their rematch.
Martinez has won his last four fights – Damian David Marchiano, Jhonatan Romero, Jeffrey Mathebula and Hozumi Hasegawa – since his loss to Frampton. Martinez knocked out all four of them. He picked up the IBF title with a 6th round stoppage win over Romero last year in August in an impressive performance.
Frampton is coming off of a 2nd round stoppage win over 36-year-old Hugo Fidel Cazares last April. Cazares was given an inflated ranking by the World Boxing Council and he clearly had no business being ranked that high after having done next to nothing in the 4 previous years. Frampton also stopped Jeremy Parodi in the 6th round last year in October.
Martinez has a good chance of beating Frampton as long as he doesn’t walk into a shot like he did last time. Martinez needs to keep his guard up, because he can’t afford to get sloppy with his defense like he did last year against Frampton. Martinez is by far the bigger puncher of the two, but it doesn’t look like he’s got the same chin that Frampton has.
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