Featherweight World Champion Leo Santa Cruz (32-0-1, 18 KOs) will defend his title against Irish superstar Carl Frampton (22-0, 14 KOs) in the main event of SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING® (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT) on Saturday, July 30 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
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“I would love to take on either of them, although obviously a clash with another British fighter would do great at the box office”.
After Santa Cruz, Frampton would love a battle with Welshman Lee Selby, the IBF featherweight champion.
“Frampton could lose to Santa Cruz – and I do believe he will get beaten – and Santa Cruz could offer me a fight but I would turn it down because I want to fight Frampton”.
Santa Cruz’s father, Jose, has been unable to train him as in the past because of illness, but Frampton isn’t convinced there will be any advantage.
“I made myself available to Santa Cruz in 2013, I think, and the fight never happened, when he was at 122”. It was disastrous, but I came back and boxed quite well after that and won on points, comfortably. Whether it’s the next fight, the one after or in the next four or five fights, everything I do now will work towards it. It doesn’t how much weight Frampton put on for this or any fight, he’s not going to be big enough to punch the lights out of guys that have a good chin.
“Looking ahead, it is a very natural fight for me to make”.
But wait, there’s more: When it comes to boxing’s most important metric that for years was dominated by Floyd Mayweather Jr.-plus-minus connect percentage, in which an opponent’s connect percentage is subtracted from a fighter’s-Santa Cruz comes in at plus-15.8 over his last nine contests.
If Frampton is going to throw Santa Cruz a curveball on Saturday night, then he’s going to need to do something that he least suspects for him to do.
“I am hoping people will talk about this for a long time”.
The pair were linked to fighting each other at super-bantamweight before Santa Cruz stepped up to featherweight previous year where he has had three fights. “So I’m used to fighting guys that are taller than me”, Frampton said. It had to have been hard on him to fight with his jaw in that condition; not to mention it being unsafe for him.
Frampton ranks in the top 10 of Opponents Power Punches Connected, meaning he stops his opponents from landing power shots at a staggering rate.
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Whenever a fighter enters the squared circle, his primary goal is always the same: Hit and don’t get hit.
