Frampton didn’t like Hearn putting his hands on him at press conference

By Boxing News - 02/25/2016 - Comments

BOXINGBy Scott Gilfoid: IBF super bantamweight champion Carl Frampton and WBA 122lb champ Scott Quigg briefly got into it on Thursday during their final press conference before Saturday’s fight at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, UK. During the face off, Frampton patted Quigg on his right shoulder as they were ending their stare down.

The next thing you know it, Quigg is grabbing Frampton in response for some incredibly odd reason. Frampton did what anyone would do when being grabbed, he grabbed back. At that point, Quigg’s promoter Eddie Hearn involved himself by coming up from behind and grabbing Frampton’s arm and pushing it away.

Hearn was smiling while doing this, but it seemed to be that he was trying to protect his fighter Quigg. It wasn’t needed, and it looked out of place. I was surprised that Frampton’s manager Barry McGuigan didn’t go after Hearn and swat him a good one because McGuigan is a former world champion fighter, and Hearn is just a 30ish promoter that has obviously never fought before in the professional ranks.

McGuigan just stood there without going after Hearn. It was fortunate for Hearn because McGuigan could have ended matters right then and there and Hearn would have been staring at the lights on his back counting stars.

“We were staring at each other for quite a while and he didn’t want to look away first. I said I’d look away. I tapped him on the shoulder and he grabbed me. I gripped him back. It was handbags really,” Frampton said to skysports.com. “The big guy Eddie tried to get involved and act Jack the Lad. I didn’t like it. Big man, the size of him but he quickly backed off.”

Hearn was lucky that Frampton did not decide to nail him with a shot. Even though Frampton is only 5’5”, he is a professional fighter after all. He would obviously make easy work of Hearn if he wanted to. Frampton showed great restraint by not warning Hearn for him putting his hands on him during the press conference.

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At Friday’s weigh-in, McGuigan and Frampton need to make it clear to both Quigg and Hearn that they need to keep their paws off Frampton. They cannot be manhandling Frampton while he is just patting Quigg on the shoulder. It might be a good idea for Frampton to have McGuigan standing in between him and Hearn and Quigg so they don’t start with the grabbing like they did today.

It looks bad with the way that Hearn grabbed Frampton and nothing was done about it. If it was someone neutral that grabbed Frampton, then it wouldn’t be a big deal. But with it being Hearn, it just came across as wrong in my view, especially given that Quigg was the one that started the whole thing.

If he had just smiled and shook Frampton’s hand when he was patting him on the shoulder, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. Just show some class, Quigg,. That’s all he had to do. Frampton is patting Quigg on his shoulder, and the guy reacts by grabbing Frampton as if he assaulted him or something. What’s up with that?

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Besides this little episode, Quigg made a major production about who gets the bigger dressing room for Saturday’s fight. He feels that he should get the biggest dressing room even though he’s the B-side and Frampton is the A-side in the equation. So in other words, Quigg wants everything to be backwards with the lesser name getting the bigger dressing room rather than the bigger name.

It’s just so sad how Quigg has gotten mixed up. Normally, I would expect a promoter to clue him in on this, but after seeing Hearn’s behavior at the final press conference on Thursday, I’m not surprised that Quigg seems so in the dark about what role he plays in this fight.

“We hold our ground. It’s the same situation with the dressing room. I’m in it or nobody’s in it. Just imagine these guys pulling their hair out. What they’re doing’s not working. It’s going to be good tomorrow [Friday],” Frampton said.

Yes, I agree with you, Frampton. They sure are getting worked over a simple dressing room. You would think that they want to have a party inside of the dressing room or something, because why in the heck would they need a large dressing room? I mean, it might be bad afterwards when/if Quigg gets whipped on Saturday. That large dressing room is going to seem so huge an empty and sad.



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