Frampton Moves Up, Santa Cruz Hopes to Keep Him Down

Frampton (left) and Santa Cruz (right) pose at press conference in NYC

This weekend, live from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Premiere Boxing Champions and Showtime Sports present the 126 pound title bout between WBA titlist Leo Santa Cruz and IBF and WBA 122 pound titlist, Irishman Carl Frampton and also features the return of Mikey Garcia who faces Elio Rojas in a junior welterweight fight.

Frampton unified the IBF and WBA 122 lb titles

The main event is an important bout for the featherweight ranks. In his first fight at featherweight, Belfast’s Carl Frampton enters the division after beating former 122 pound Scott Quigg in a rather dull affair.  While their 122 pound unification bout generated a lot of buzz across the pond, the fight ended up being a dud as both fighters appeared tight and unwilling to exchange punches.

Frampton lands a rare right hand on Scott Quigg

It might have been considered a chess match, but honestly, even chess matches produce more action.

Looking to wash out the bad taste left from his fight with Quigg, Frampton moves up in weight to face three division champion, Leo Santa Cruz.  Santa Cruz, born in Michoacán, Mexico and currently living in California is no stranger to moving up in weight.
  
Santa Cruz captured his first world title at 118 pounds, and only five fights later would add the 122 pound title to his collection. In 2015, Santa Cruz moved up once again to fight WBA featherweight champion, Abner Mares.  In an exciting, action packed bout, Santa Cruz proved too much for the highly respected Mares and came away with a majority decision.

Santa Cruz (right) defeated Mares (left)
by majority decision

As a matchup, Santa Cruz versus Frampton will be anything but a chess match (no fight with Santa Cruz could ever be). Santa Cruz is a very aggressive, high output, stalker, while Frampton is more of a counter puncher who can also lead with his offense. These two styles should mesh very well as Santa Cruz will most likely attempt to walk Frampton down and produce plenty of opportunities for Frampton to counter.

What will be interesting to see is if Frampton will be able to overcome Santa Cruz’s advantages in height, reach and punch output. Frampton is very versatile in that he can fight well when moving away from his opponent or when backing his opponent up.  He uses a wide variety of punches and has quick hands to deliver them. Standing at 5’5”, Frampton has a short, but compact frame. He is also able to close the distance on taller opponents. Frampton’s fight versus Alejandro Gonzalez Jr comes to mind as Gonzalez is similar in stature and boxing style to Santa Cruz (both are listed at 5’7”). Gonzalez was tough, but lacked the activity level that Santa Cruz will bring. Outside of a disastrous opening round, Frampton dealt with his taller and longer opponent quite easily en route to a unanimous decision.

Santa Cruz’s success may come down to his ability to cut the ring off on Frampton and not allowing him to set the rhythm and pace of the fight. While Frampton is quick on the draw with his 1-2 combinations, he often admires his work and gets careless after he’s done punching. Santa Cruz has quick hands himself and will be willing to punch with Frampton when he decides to open up.  Santa Cruz also attacks the body consistently, and this will be key in the later rounds as it would hamper Frampton’s ability to use his legs to move in and out of his opponent’s punching range.

The main event is a solid matchup of styles and now that it appears promotional doorways are opening up between PBC and Top Rank fighters, the possibilities for exciting matchups in the featherweight division look very bright.

Garcia (left) drops Orlando Salido (right) 

On the undercard 28 year-old Mikey Garcia (34-0, 28 Kos) ends a two and half year hiatus from the ring to face Elio Rojas (24-2, 14 KOs). Now that Mikey has finally put his promotional issues behind him, he is ready to resume his boxing career and what at time it is to be back. This is unquestionably a showcase fight for Garcia as he looks to shake off any rust from the layoff. Rojas, a former WBC featherweight champion, is coming off a two year layoff of his own. In reality, though Rojas is a very capable boxer and former world champion, he is not expected to give Garcia too much trouble. This fight is more about Garcia getting settled back into the ring so he can begin a lightweight title run by the end of the year.