By Mark Eisner: Carl Frampton and Michael Conlan are fighting tonight against Darren Traynor and Sofiane Takoucht on BT Sport and ESPN+ from York Hall in Bethnal Green, London, UK.
The former two-division world champion Frampton (27-2, 16 KOs) is taking a warm-up against Traynor (16-3, 7 KOs) in a 10-round headliner contest, which probably won’t go the distance.
Frampton, 33, is utilizing the match against domestic-level fighter Traynor to get him prepared for a title shot against WBO super featherweight champion Jamel Herring in the fall.
For his part, the two-time Irish Olympian Conlan (13-0, 7 KOs) is readying himself to fight for a world title at super bantamweight or the WBO 122lb belt, which was vacated recently by Emanuel Navarrete.
Conlan is facing 34-year-old Takoucht (35-4-1, 13 KOs), who is coming into this contest having been knocked out in the 2nd round by Josh Warrington last October.
Frampton won his last fight against Tyler McCreary last November in winning a one-sided 10 round decision.
Prediction:
Traynor stands no chance against Frampton, and this fight should end by the third round, depending on how hard ‘The Jackal’ chooses to fight.
The 33-year-old Traynor is a domestic level fighter with two losses in his last fought fights in defeats against James Tennyson and Juli Giner.
Carl to face Herring in the fall
“I’m looking to fight Jamel Herring, and he’s in the same boat s me in terms of mishaps and things going wrong,” said Frampton to DAZN. “So it hasn’t been a great year.
“I feel sorry for him, and I know what it’s like. I know Jamel like myself. He leaves his family and trains away from home. He goes away and trains.
“The impression I have of him is he’s a mentally strong person, and with me, I feel like I’m a mentally strong person. It’s been the same for me as it has for anyone else,” said Frampton on dealing with what’s going on this year.
“In this game of boxing, a lot of things are going on fighting behind closed doors. I was supposed to be fighting Jamel Herring. June 13th was the proposed date, and it was almost done, and what’s happened has happened.
“I’ve been lucky to have a gym, so I’ve been training. I’ve got a solid base behind me, I’m fit, and I’m ready to hit the ground running when things open up again,” said Frampton.
“I was upset when I lost both times,” said Frampton in his defeats to Leo Santa Cruz and Josh Warrington. “And I wanted to win both times. And I felt confident that I could win both fights,” said Carl.
Frampton has a good chance of defeating Herring, but he’ll need to be at his best for that to happen.
Carl’s loss to IBF featherweight champion Josh Warrington in 2018 was a more decisive defeat than Carl’s defeat to Leo Santa Cruz in 2017, which is why it was a harder fight for him to deal with mentally.
Losing to Santa Cruz and Warrington was tough
“I think the Warrington one for me was the hardest one for me to get over because I felt like I didn’t perform at all, and I felt like it wasn’t me, and there’s a lot more to give,” said Frampton.
“He won the fight fair & square, but I got it wrong on the night. I feel like. I feel like that’s a fight that I could avenge if I got a chance for a rematch.
“The Santa Cruz fight, a brilliant battle both of them. There should have been a third fight, but obviously, there should have been. It’s a shame, but it’s through no fault of my own.
“I wanted the fight and was happy to travel to LA, and he knows that. But the Warrington fight hurt me more than the Santa Cruz loss.
“I don’t think so,” said Frampton when asked if his loss to Santa Cruz took anything out of him. “You can ask the same question about the Warrington defeat as well, which was another great fight.
If you saw me sparring, I spoke to my team about it; it’s the best I’ve been sparring in years. I feel like I’m rolling back the years. Whether that has to do with the camp has changed this time.
“We’re doing fewer rounds of sparring because it’s been tougher to get sparring partners in. We weren’t able to spar because the British Boxing Board of Control wasn’t allowing sparring up until four or five weeks ago.
“So I’ve been training smarter this time than normal, and that’s been helping me. But if you saw me sparring, I don’t think that any of these hard fights have taken anything away from me,” Frampton said.
Frampton fought well enough in his rematch with Santa Cruz for him to deserve the victory, but the venue didn’t work in his favor.
The match took place in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Frampton had everything going against him on the night in terms of the crowd and judges.
Santa Cruz didn’t want a trilogy match
“There are probably several reasons,” said Frampton on why he never fought Santa Cruz in a third clash. “Ultimately, the fight could have happened if he wanted it to happen.
“That’s the main issue here. There’s another reason, but I can’t say because it would probably get me in a lot of trouble legally.
“It’s a shame, but I think it’ll be more of a blotch on his career when we look back at our careers and people and people ask the question, ‘Why did the third fight never happen.’ I think it’ll be more of a blot on him than it’ll be on me.
“I want the fight [with Santa Cruz], but I don’t see it ever happening,” said Frampton. “That’s a shame, once again, and I’ve wanted the fight. It’s just a shame that it’s never happened,” said Frampton.
Carl got his tactics wrong
“I did reflect over the year when Josh [Warrington] beat me,” said Carl on his loss to Warrington. “I was upset with myself, and I thought about retirement. And I think the main issue was that I didn’t want to go out on a fight like that because I knew I was still a better fighter than I was in that performance.
“I wanted to show people that I am a better fighter than that, and I got it wrong on the night. It wasn’t a case of me being over-the-hill. It was a case of me getting my tactics wrong.
“I hold my hand up for that, and I take full responsibility. Once I thought about that and I through the process, and I spoke to my team at MTK.
“The deal with Top Rank came up, and in my opinion, Top Rank is the biggest promotional company on the planet. When they came calling and said, ‘We think we can make you a world champion again [by matching you against Jamel Herring],” Carl continued.
Frampton is still brewing over the loss to Warrington, but it’s a match that Carl should never have taken in the first place. It was clear going into the contest that Frampton had outgrown the 126-lb division and needed to move up to 130.
Carl eager to win another world title
“We’ll give you the opportunity against Jamel Herring.’ I had to take it, and I’m confident that I can become a world champion. I think so,” said Frampton when asked if Herring is the guy that he’s been wanting to fight to try and win another world title.
“Our names have been mentioned alongside each other for probably a year, and I know he’s with Top Rank. He’s always looking for opponents all the time.
“There’s not a lot of opponents that seem to want to fight Jamel Herring, but I’m standing up here saying that I’ll fight him.
“I’m standing up saying I’ll fight him, and he seems to want to give me the opportunity. So there’s mutual respect between Jamel and me, and I’m pretty sure that the fight will happen soon,” Frampton said.
Frampton ready for Jamel
“Yeah, [Miguel] Berchelt, what a fighter,” said Frampton when asked if he can fight other Top Rank-promoted super featherweights in the next year if he beats Herring.
“He’s probably the #1 guy in the division, I would say, But even someone like Oscar Valdez, also though he’s not a champion, it’s a massive fight for me.
“We were talking about him and me fighting as featherweights. We had a bit of a rivalry, and we had a bit of respect between Oscar and me. But that’s another fight that interests me.
“What I would mean with the top two promoters in the UK ould get their top fighters fighting each other, it would be huge for British boxing and huge for world boxing,” said Frampton on the possibility of Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren working with one another.
“It’s interesting that both guys usually are at loggerheads, criticizing each other constantly. But in interviews I’ve seen recently, both seem optimistic that they can try to make fights happen.
“So hopefully something comes off from that, and it’s not just hearsay and a little bit of talk. But who knows? This game, you know what it’s like promoters working with each other. Hopefully, we can all get together and make the big things happen,” said Frampton.
Carl wants to become Ireland’s first three-division world champion, and for him to do that, he’s got to beat Traynor tonight and then Herring in the fall.