Unfortunately in boxing, you don’t always get a chance to see arguably the top 2 guys within a division face each other, especially when both are still undefeated and both have a belt. On Saturday, live from Manchester Arena, boxing fans will be privileged to see just that. Showtime Extreme will be telecasting the best bout of the year, on paper, that is actually going to happen, as the IBF World super bantamweight champion, Ireland’s Carl Frampton squares off against the WBA Super World super bantamweight champion, Lancashire’s own Scott Quigg.
Carl Frampton enters Saturday’s contest with an unblemished record of 21-0 with 14 KOs. The 29 year old Frampton has 2 quality wins over Kiko Martinez and an impressive win against Chris Avalos. During Frampton’s last fight against Alejandro Gonzalez Jr, he was actually knocked down twice in the 1st and recovered to dominate the rest of the fight. The man known as “The Jackal” is not afraid to mix it up and has good technical skills to back up his pop. Frampton may not be a KO artist, but he does throw punches with authority. He is currently ranked as the #1 super bantamweight in the world.
The hometown boy, Scott Quigg enters the ring with an undefeated record of 31-0-2 with 23 KOs. He seems to be hitting his stride and right in the middle of the prime of his career at age 27. His last 2 fights were his most impressive as he completely outclassed Hidenori Otake and then surprisingly dispensed with Kiko Martinez with an early 2nd round stoppage, a fight he was supposed to win, but it was done very impressively. Quigg now hopes he can build off that momentum to take his place as king of the 122 pound division. Currently he is ranked, by most, as the #3 bantamweight in the world.
Quigg should have the reach advantage, but Frampton is usually pretty good at getting inside. Both guys have enough pop to hurt the other. Frampton’s style is a bit smoother, but Quigg has proved to be effective against anyone he has faced. Frampton fights with his legs more wide apart, but it works for him, while Quigg is a bit more upright. It’s really a great contrast of styles that makes for a good fight either way.
This is one of the very rare 50-50 fights that does not seem to happen in the sport of boxing anymore, especially without a catchweight involved. This one can literally go either way, but I’m going to go with Frampton. I feel he is more technically sound and Quigg may be a bit too aggressive and run into something. So with that said, going with Frampton by 8th round stoppage. But truly, my prediction doesn’t matter, as I said, this fight can go either way and it’s almost better to just watch the skills of these 2 guys going at it instead of rooting for 1 of them.
Now with these 2 stepping up to face each other’s hardest competition, it’s a breath of fresh air when you see the best fighting the best, and even though Guillermo Rigondeaux may disagree, most people will call the winner of this fight, the best in the world at 122 pounds. Of course, not only Rigondeaux, but Leo Santa Cruz will also be watching and waiting to fight the winner of this to stake their claim as the best, at this point it doesn’t matter.
In the times of today where Sergey Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson just talk, Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin are just talking, and Roman Gonzalez can’t get any top guys to “talk” to him, this is a fight where fans actually get to see an absolute winner and top dog emerge. All boxing fans have to do is sit back, relax, and watch a rare moment in boxing, 2 guys that aren’t at the end of their career, finding out who the best of the best is, enjoy the fight.