Carl Frampton defeats Leo Santa Cruz results

By Boxing News - 07/30/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: In a highly controversial decision, former IBF/WBA super bantamweight champion Carl Frampton (23-0, 14 Kos) defeated WBA featherweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (32-1-1, 18 KOs) by a 12 round decision on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

The judges scored the fight 114-114, 116-112, and 117-111. I scored it 9 rounds to 3 for Santa Cruz. He threw more 300 punches than Frampton, and dominated the second half of the fight with his harder shots.

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I could see the Santa Cruz vs. Frampton fight being scored 114-114, but the judges that scored it 116-112 and 117-111 gave Santa Cruz no credit at all. The 117-111 score was a crazy score. The judge was saying that Frampton won by a 9 rounds to 3 score, and there’s no way that Frampton won the fight by that score or any score.

Frampton, 29, was at his best in the first six rounds of the fight when Santa Cruz wasn’t pressuring him, and was letting him pot shot. However, after the 6th, Santa Cruz came on big time and pretty swept the last six rounds of the fight. I couldn’t give Frampton any of the last six rounds because he was being outworked and running away each time Santa Cruz came forward to attack him. It was hard to watch the spoiling tactics of Frampton, because he was more like a champion trying to keep his title than a challenger.

I don’t think Frampton did nearly enough to get the win, but I’m not surprised by the weird scoring. There was a large pro Frampton crowd at the Barclays Center tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised if 80 percent of the fans were fans of Frampton. Santa Cruz’s team made the mistake of agreeing to that venue rather than insisting that the fight take place in Southern California or Texas where more of the fans would be rooting for Santa Cruz.

After the fight, Santa Cruz said he would like to challenge WBC champion Gary Russell Jr. or IBF champion Lee Selby for their titles. He also said he would like a rematch with Frampton. It’s unclear whether he’ll get the rematch unfortunately.

When Frampton was asked whether he would like to fight “The Jackal” Guillermo Rigondeaux, he said that there was no money in fighting the Cuban fighter and that he sees him as a boring fighter. A lot of boxing fans believe that Frampton is afraid to lose to Rigondeaux because he’s the super bantamweight division’s version of Terence Crawford.

Santa Cruz’s higher work rate appeared to be more than enough for him to win the last six rounds of the fight. I couldn’t give Frampton any of the last six rounds because he wasn’t able to keep up with the fast pace of Santa Cruz’s offense. Frampton chose to do a lot of holding and fleeing when Santa Cruz could come forward to land his punches. Santa Cruz landed the harder shots in the 2nd half of the fight, and appeared to hurt Frampton on a couple of occasions.

They’re calling the Santa Cruz vs. Frampton fight a candidate for the ‘Fight of the Year’, but I don’t know if you can consider it that kind of match-up. There was far too much boxing involved by Frampton. He was moving in and out, and holding a lot, especially in the second half of the fight when he gassed out. When you compare this fight with the far more exciting match-up between Orlando Salido and Francisco Vargas, there’s no comparison. The Vargas vs. Salido fight was the much more entertaining fight, because Vargas wasn’t running from Salido the way that Frampton was doing with Santa Cruz tonight.

Frampton, 29, was moving up in weight from the super bantamweight division where he previously held the IBF/WBA titles. Frampton had been ordered to fight Guillermo Rigondeaux by the World Boxing Association. If Frampton had stayed in the 122lb division, he would have had to either fight Rigondeaux and face losing or vacate the belt and be seen by fans as ducking the Cuban fighter. So instead of fighting Rigondeaux, Frampton vacated both of his 122lb titles and moved up in weight to 126. You can argue that Frampton ducked Rigondeaux, but he’s not taking as much criticism now given that he won the WBA title.

There was a large crowd of 9,062 fans tonight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for the Santa Cruz vs. Frampton fight. It’s hard to imagine many of those fans being Santa Cruz fans. The fight was televised on Showtime Championship Boxing.