(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Scott Gilfoid: WBC super bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (28-0-1, 16 KOs) says he’s interested in facing the two UK 122 pound world champions Carl Frampton and Scott Quigg in 2015 if possible. Santa Cruz especially is interested in facing Frampton, as he thinks it would be an interesting fight.
As for Quigg, he notes that Quigg is still licking his wounds from his last fight and not in position to take a fight against him at this time.
Santa Cruz, 26, has a simple stay busy fight this Saturday night against little known Jesus Ruiz (33-5-5, 22 KOs) on the undercard of the Deontay Wilder vs. Bermane Stiverne heavyweight clash on Showtime Championship Boxing at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“Yeah, I think so, I want to fight him [Frampton],” Santa Cruz said via Skysports.com when asked if he would be interested in facing Carl Frampton. “I’ve been wanting to fight him since a while ago. He has the IBF now so I think a unification could come right there. Right now, I think he’s got a mandatory against Avalos, so hopefully after that one – if I’m available – I would like to unify against him.”
Frampton is going to have his hands full with Avalos, who is like a better version of Kiko Martinez. As we saw in Frampton’s last fight against Martinez, he had a tough time winning that match-up. Avalos will definitely have Frampton on the run in this fight and force him to fight or else stink out the joint with nonstop movement.
Santa Cruz would need to have a small ring if he were to face Frampton, because the guy moves all the time and doesn’t stay put long enough to get a shot off.
Santa Cruz’s management would likely need to get an agreement for the fight against Frampton to be staged in the United States for it to be worthwhile.
The last thing that Santa Cruz needs to do is go over to Belfast and find himself on the losing end of a controversial decision. Since it’s a unification fight, things like purse bids wouldn’t come into play. As such, there wouldn’t be a way for Santa Cruz’s promoters to be outbid by Frampton’s people.
This means that Santa Cruz can simply tell Frampton that if he wants the fight against him then he’ll need to come to Las Vegas, Nevada and fight him there or else no fight.
Santa Cruz also is interested in facing WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux, who is a far better fighter than Frampton in my view. I think that fight has a better chance of taking place than a Santa Cruz vs. Frampton fight, because Santa Cruz wants to test himself against the best in the division. Thus far, Frampton’s management has shown no interest in matching him against Rigondeaux for some reason.
Comments are closed.