CARL FRAMPTON BREAKS HIS LEFT HAND AND IS OFF THE ESPN+ CARD IN PHILLY

By Ringtv.com

PHOTO BY NAOKI FUKUDA05AUG

Philadelphia, Pa. – Carl Frampton had been looking forward to this. It was going to be his first fight with new promoter Top Rank. It involved some sacrifice, like the 12-week training camp in which “The Jackal” was away from his family.

That all came to a screeching halt on Monday morning at around 11 a.m. in the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel, on the outskirts of Philadelphia, when someone inadvertently walked into a curtain and a seven-foot vase came crashing down on Frampton’s left hand, which resulted in a nondisplaced transverse fracture of the fifth metacarpal fracture.

It was a clean break mid-shaft break, Frampton said, but doctors told him that it would take four-to-six weeks to heal, cancelling his ESPN+ fight against Emmanuel Dominguez this Saturday night in the 10-round featherweight main event of the Top Rank show at Temple University’s at the Liacouras Center (10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. ET).

The Ring and Boxing Writers Association of America 2016 fighter of the year, Frampton (26-2, 15 knockouts) was looking to rebound from his December loss to IBF featherweight beltholder Josh Warrington.

“I’m disappointed,” said Frampton, who was looking for a Tuesday afternoon out of Philadelphia to go back home to Belfast, Northern Ireland. “There were a lot of people coming here from Ireland to watch the fight. I’m very angry. I want to go home.

“I put a lot of time into this fight, and have it end like this is f—— crazy. I thought when it originally happened it was only a bruise. But when they took the A-rays Monday afternoon, that confirmed it.

“I was just sitting there in the hotel lobby, getting ready to do an ESPN shoot at the Grays Ferry Gym (in Philadelphia) when this thing landed on my left hand. I have and will try to stay off social media, because there’s all of this crazy stuff being said and none of it is true, when I saw it.”

Frampton, 32, was placed in a soft cast.

The ESPN+ fight will still go on, with the Jason Sosa-Haskell Lydell Rhodes 10-round junior lightweight fight stepping up as the main event.

From nearby Camden, N.J., Sosa (22-3-4, 15 KOs) will be looking for his third-straight victory, while Rhodes (27-3-1, 13 KOs) will be looking to win his second consecutive fight.

The card will also mark the pro debut of two-time Cuban Olympic gold medalist Robeisy Ramirez. The 25-year-old southpaw Cuban expatriate won the flyweight gold medal in 2012 and bantamweight gold medal in 2016. He’ll face Adan Gonzalez (4-2-2, 2 KOs) in a four-round featherweight bout.