(Photo credit: Amanda Westcott/SHOWTIME) By Patrick McHugh: If it’s up to Leo Santa Cruz (32-1-1, 18 KOs), he’ll be getting a fast rematch with Carl Frampton (23-0, 14 KOs), who beat him by a 12 round majority decision last Saturday night to take his WBA Super World featherweight title at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Santa Cruz says he wants the rematch with Frampton to take place in Los Angeles, California, because he figures that it would be a different story with the support that he would receive from his fans in that venue. The judges scored the fight 114-114, 117-111 and 116-112. Santa Cruz landed 211 of 1,002 punches in the fight. There were 197 punches thrown in the 12th round alone.
Santa Cruz says that he agreed to fight Frampton in New York in front of an audience that he felt were filled with a lot of Irish fans of Frampton. Santa Cruz believes that Frampton should do the right thing and agree to fight him in Los Angeles.
Never the less, Santa Cruz says he will agree to fight the Irish Frampton in his home city of Belfast, Northern Ireland if that’s what he needs to do in order to get the rematch.
“It was a tough fight. It could have gone either way,” said Santa Cruz at the post-fight press conference. “I just want the rematch; wherever he wants it. I want it in LA, but if he wants it in Belfast, I can go to Belfast. I can go anywhere, and I’ll be more than ready. I want him now with the rematch in LA. But in New York, he had almost all the people behind him. He had all the Irish people there. I think that helped him a little. We’re going to have a rematch, and I hope it’s in LA. My dad wanted me to box inside. I think my game plan was to put pressure from the beginning. I think when I put pressure, I landed many punches. In the rematch, I’m going to work on what I did wrong, and I’m going to go all out from the first round. We’re going to throw everything. My dad wanted me to box and stay on the outside. I wanted to go inside and brawl. I was using more distance and it wasn’t working. When I went out and put pressure, I think it worked for me. I think in the rematch, if I get it, I’m going to put pressure from the first round, and I think we’re going to win the fight,” said Santa Cruz.
It sounds like Santa Cruz got stuck following his father/trainer’s game plan for too long last Saturday night in trying to box Frampton from the outside rather than looking to put pressure on him from the outset. It took too long for Santa Cruz to adapt in the fight. If he had made a quick switch to Plan-B in round two, he very likely would have won the fight. The pressure that Santa Cruz put on Frampton clearly worked in the second half of the contest when he started to really turn up the heat on him.
Santa Cruz and his father only have themselves to blame for the defeat. The blueprint already there in how to beat Frampton from his last two fights against Scott Quigg and Alejandro Gonzalez Jr. Both of those fighters had a great deal of success against Frampton by putting pressure on him. It’s unclear why Santa Cruz’s father decided not to follow that blueprint for this fight.
It looks like Santa Cruz’s father decided to use the blueprint that they used last year in beating Abner Mares. It was a good game plan for that fight, but not for the Frampton fight, because he’s allays done well in beating taller fighters that tried to box him from the outside. If Santa Cruz’s ad had noticed how well Frampton had historically done against taller fighters than himself, then they could have come into the fight last Saturday night with the right game plan of putting pressure on Frampton from the first round and not slowing down up the pace.
According to Lance Pugmire, there’s a rematch clause in the contract.
“A Premier Boxing Champions official who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to a confidentiality agreement on the matter said a rematch clause does exist, and that Santa Cruz is empowered to exercise it immediately,” said Pugmire to the LA Times.
That’s interesting because Frampton’s own manager Barry McGuigan said there wasn’t a rematch clause. If he doesn’t even know about the rematch clause, then it’s unknown how that would have slipped past him in the negotiation process.
The rematch between Santa Cruz and Frampton is more likely to take place in either Belfast or New York. Santa Cruz isn’t in the position to get his way to have the fight take place in Los Angeles. He gave Frampton’s side a huge gift this time around by agreeing to fight him in New York in a city with a large Irish community rather than using his title to get the fight staged in Los Angeles. Now that Frampton is the WBA 126lb champion, it’s highly unlikely that he’ll give Santa Cruz the advantage out of a sense of fair play. Frampton and McGuigan are likely to use any advantage they can by having the fight staged in Belfast in a large outdoor stadium where the fans would be on their side and the fight would make more money.
It was “the toughest fight of my career … I fought with my heart. People will remember it for a very long time,” said Frampton. “It’ll be a good fight,” said Frampton about a rematch with Santa Cruz. [Saturday] was a huge achievement. I’m just a normal guy, working class, who can fight a wee bit.”
There’s talk that Frampton will try and get either a voluntary defense next or a unification match against WBC champion Gary Russell Jr. or IBF champion Lee Selby next. Those guys were both present last Saturday night at the Santa Cruz-Frampton fight. Fighting either of those guys would be a tough fight for Frampton to take off the back of his grueling contest against Santa Cruz. Those are risky fights for Frampton, especially now that there’s a clear blue print out there now in how to beat him.
Just spoke to @leosantacruz2 alone. He told me he'll ask Al Haymon for immediate rematch and will benefit from full camp with dad next time.
— Lance Pugmire (@latimespugmire) July 31, 2016
“We’re just going to get back in the gym, train harder, get the rematch and come back stronger,” Santa Cruz said.