By Scott Gilfoid: IBF super bantamweight champion Kiko Martinez (31-4, 23 KOs) will be looking to avenge his previous defeat to Carl Frampton (18-0, 13 KOs) tonight in their fight at the Titanic Quarter, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.
Frampton scored a stoppage win over Martinez a year ago in February 2013 in a fight that Martinez was doing quite well in. Martinez had Frampton literally on the run in the 9th round after giving him a taste of his power in the early rounds.
Unfortunately for Martinez, he was hit with a shot that he didn’t see coming in the 9th and was knocked out. But other than that one punch, Martinez had no problems handling Frampton’s power when the two of them exchanged shots with each other. Martinez was clearly the bigger puncher of the two and the more rugged guy. Frampton was someone that had to resort to movement when things got rough for him early on.
A win for Martinez will lead to some tasty fights against the likes of Leo Santa Cruz and Guillermo Rigondeaux. Those are the big names in the 122 pound division right now. Scott Quigg is the WBA junior belt holder and he’s still not proven himself. Rigondeaux is waiting for Quigg to finally decide to fight him, but he obviously isn’t going to hold his breath waiting for that to happen.
You’ve got to give Martinez a massive amount of respect for agreeing to fight Frampton in his home country, because he really didn’t need to do this. Martinez could have insisted on the fight taking place in his home country of Spain where he would have the fans on his side rather than against him like what you’ll be seeing tonight in Belfast. But Martinez feels that he’ll be able to take the fans and the three judges out of the equation by knocking Frampton out.
Martinez doesn’t want the judges to have any part of the equation for this fight because he knows full well how it can be when you’ve got a visiting fighter traveling to another fighter’s hometown to fight.
Getting robbed is obviously not something that Martinez wants to have happen to him, so he plans on knocking Frampton out and turning the judges into passive spectators with scorecards that will never be used.
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