Hearn wants to promote Carl Frampton

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn says he would be very interested in working with former 2 division world champion Carl Frampton once again. Frampton just parted ways with his longtime manager Barry McGuigan on August 21, and he still hasn’t signed with anyone yet.

It’s thought by some I the boxing world that Frampton will soon find his way to Hearn to join his Matchroom Sport stable. With Hearn’s contract with Sky Sports, it enables him to have his fighters in his huge stable televised on that network. Hearn has some good fighters in his promotional company.

Some of them aren’t all that thrilling to watch, but Hearn does a good job of matching his guys against fighters that they can beat. Hearn can certainly extend Frampton’s career with similar match-making. Look at the extra mileage that Hearn has been able to get out of Ricky Burns’ career. His career was on the downside 3 years ago in 2014, and yet Hearn was able to build him back up to win a world title at 140 with the match-making he did for him. I think Burns is still the same fighter that he was in 2014 when he was considered done, but Hearn’s brilliant match-making has enabled him to get more out of his career.

Hearn would like to match Frampton (23-1, 14 KOs) against Scott Quigg in a rematch. Frampton beat Quigg by a close 12 round split decision last year on February 27. However, Hearn thinks Frampton, 29, prefers a rematch with Leo Santa Cruz, who beat him by a 12 round unanimous decision earlier this year in January. Frampton wanted a third fight against Santa Cruz to take place in Belfast, but since the first bout between them had essentially been a home fight for Frampton in New York, it wasn’t a deal that Santa Cruz was interested in.

Hearn says he can get Frampton the fights he wants, but I don’t know if that’s true. Hearn wants to put Frampton in with his Matchroom Sport stable fighters Lee Selby and Quigg. Those would be okay fights for Frampton, but he wants to avenge his loss to Santa Cruz, and it’s unclear whether Hearn can make that fight happen. If Hearn stubbornly insists that Santa Cruz come over to the UK to fight Frampton in their rubber match, then I’m that fight is never going to happen.

Santa Cruz already fought in front of a huge crowd of Frampton supporters in his first fight with him in New York last year. That fight might as well have taken place in Belfast, because there were very few Santa Cruz supporters in the crowd that night. Santa Cruz was all by himself in being surrounded by a massive crowd of Frampton fans, which is fine. It would have been a big deal if Frampton hadn’t won a controversial decision on the night. Boxing News 24 saw that fight and had Santa Cruz doing a bang up job of winning 7 rounds to 5. The judges, however, scored it for Frampton by 12 round majority decision by the scores 116-112, 117-111 and 114-114. I don’t know which fight the judge that scored it 117-111 for Frampton was watching, but it couldn’t have been the one that took place on that night. That score was scary bad. Santa Cruz would have needed a knockout to beat Frampton with the way the fight was scored by the judges.

”I can get him the fights he craves. I can pay him the money that he wants and I want to work with him,” said Frampton to skysports.com. ”If Carl Frampton is a free agent; I want to work with him. Carl Frampton is a massive box office star and is a great fighter. I can get him the fights he craves. I can pay him the money that he wants and I want to work with him.”

It’s not likely that Hearn will make the fight between Frampton and IBF featherweight champion Lee Selby just yet. First, Frampton would likely need to ink with Hearn. Once he does that, Hearn will probably spend time building the Selby vs. Frampton fight up by putting them on the same card once or twice in order to whet the appetite of the British boxing public. Once the fans are chomping at the bit to see Frampton and Selby get it on, then Hearn will pull the trigger on the fight and make it happen. It goes without saying that Frampton will wipe the deck with the feather-fisted Selby.

That’s pretty much academic. But then again, Quigg would obliterate Selby even faster than Frampton if Hearn would hurry up and make that fight already. It looks to me like Hearn is trying to get as much mileage out of Selby’s career as possible. Once Selby gets whipped by one of the contenders, who Hearn likely promotes, then it’s going to be next to impossible for him to ever win another world title. The featherweight is too stacked right now with talent. A guy like Selby is kind of out of place. Quigg and Frampton possess the required talent to win world titles at featherweight and hold onto the belts against whoever challenges then. Selby isn’t that kind of fighter. He’s vulnerable due to his lack of power.

“Could we see Quigg-Frampton II? Quite possibly, but listening to Carl Frampton, his target is a rematch with Leo Santa Cruz,” said Hearn.

Of course, Frampton would rather fight Sana Cruz rather than Quigg. Santa Cruz is a world champion in holding down the WBA featherweight belt. Quigg is just a contender. Why would Frampton want to fight a contender that he already beat? If I was Frampton, I wouldn’t waste my time fighting Quigg again until he wins a world title at 126. Until then, he would be unworthy of a fight. I know it would be good for Hearn if Frampton threw Quigg a bone by giving him a rematch, as it would be a fight that would be well received by the boxing public in the UK.

Frampton wants to avenge that loss to Santa Cruz more than anything. The only way I see Frampton getting a third fight against Santa Cruz is if he agrees to come over to the U.S and fight him in Los Angeles, California. I don’t see Santa Cruz fighting him in New York ever again, and I don’t think he’ll bother facing him in Vegas either. Shockingly, one judge scored their January 28 fight a draw. I don’t know how you could see the second Frampton vs. Santa Cruz fight and score it a draw. That makes zero sense. Having the third fight in Los Angeles in front of Santa Cruz’s fans is the logical move to make, considering that the first fight took place in front of Frampton’s boxing fans in New York and the second fight in from of a mix of fans in Las Vegas.

Frankly, I don’t know how much Frampton has left in the tank at 29. He’s starting to look like his boxing skills are slowly deteriorating. Frampton didn’t look at all good in his 2 fights with Santa Cruz, and he was almost as bad in his fights with Quigg and Alejandro Gonzalez Jr. That’s 4 consecutive off performances by Frampton. Is it just a coincidence that Frampton has looked awful in his last 4 fights or is this a sign that he’s seen better days and is going downhill? I’m just saying.