Carl Frampton vs. Chris Avalos tonight in Belfast

By Boxing News - 02/28/2015 - Comments

frampton33By Scott Gilfoid: IBF super bantamweight champion Carl Frampton (19-0, 13 KOs) will be putting both his unbeaten record and his IBF 122 pound strap on the line against #1 IBF Chris Avalos (25-2, 19 KOs) in a fight that will be taking place in Frampton’s neck of the woods at the Odyssey Arena, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

With the fight taking place in Frampton’s home city and country, it’s going to put pressure on him to fight a little more aggressively than he’s shown recently in his two fights against Kiko Martinez.

Frampton’s loyal Irish fans are going to expect him to stand in the trenches with Avalos and trade with him rather than seeing him run all around the ring like he did in his two fights against Martinez. Frampton will need to stand and trade if he doesn’t want to stink up the joint tonight.

The thing is if Frampton trades with Avalos, it’s going to turn the fight into a competitive match-up that could go either way. I mean, Avalos is an excellent brawler with superb power and hand speed.

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What he doesn’t do well is box, and he’s not good at handling movement. That’s why the fight will be interesting just so long as Frampton doesn’t box or run from the battle field. Avalos needs Frampton to stand and make a fight of it for him to have a good chance of winning the fight.

This is an extremely important fight for Frampton, because he’s been flapping his gums about wanting to fight WBA champion Scott Quigg and WBA/WBO 122 pound champion Guillermo Rigondeaux.

If Frampton gets whipped by Avalos, then you can pretty much forget about any chance of Frampton fighting Rigondeaux or Quigg. But to be honest, I don’t see a Frampton vs. Rigondeaux fight happening for another 4-6 years, not until Rigondeaux starts showing signs of being completely shot as a fighter.

Given that Rigondeaux is 34 right now and still speedy fast and incredibly talented, I don’t see Frampton’s manager Barry McGuigan letting him get within 3,000 miles of the Cuban star until he’s nearing 40, and has lost much of his hand speed and ring movement.

Avalos, who at 25 is three years younger than the 28-year-old Frampton, intends on bringing the IBF strap back to the United States after he gives Frampton a royal thrashing in front of his own Irish fans tonight. Avalos wants to belt Frampton around the ring in the process of taking his IBF strap from him forcefully. This would be a great trophy for Avalos to take Frampton’s scalp, and then take the IBF title home to America.

Avalos would then be in position where he would be able to get the unification match against Quigg or Rigondeaux. That would give Avalos a nice little payday. Heck, Avalos might even consider giving Frampton a rematch if they offered him a nice payday to come back to Belfast to take him on again. Of course, they would have to sweeten the deal more the second time around to make it worthwhile for him.



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