A Night of Boxing

A great bill of boxing took place in Manchester last night and also in El Paso, Texas, where Carl Frampton took his show on the road to raise his profile to the American boxing fans.

“The Jackal” defended his IBF Super Bantamweight title, against Alejandro Gonzalez Jnr, which was billed by pundits as an easy defence for Frampton to show of his skills to American, however, this was not the case, in the first round Frampton took two 8 counts, and was getting caught too easy coming into range to try to land his own shots.

As the fight went on, Frampton took control, but it will concern his camp how easy it was that he got tagged.  Frampton went onto win comfortably on points, which was certainly aided by Gonzalez having two points deducted for low blows in the fight.

At the same time Frampton was fighting in the USA, Scott Quigg was defending his WBA Super Batamweight title against Kiko Martinez, a man that Frampton has fought twice, beating him in 9 rounds and 12 round decision respectively.

Quigg got hit with some solid shots in the first round, however in the second round, he caught Martinez with a great uppercut which rocked the fighter, Quigg then piled on the pressure and the referee stepped in to stop the fight.  It was a fantastic result for the Bury born boxer, as most expected Martinez to take him the distance.

There has been talk for a while of a match between Frampton and Quigg, and it has always been Frampton in the strong position, however, this is now changing, Quigg’s stock has never been as high as is now and Frampton did show last night he can be tagged, this fight may happen sooner rather than later.

Anthony Crolla took on Colombian’s Darleys Perez in a bid to win the WBA Lightweight title, Crolla really stepped up to the mark and put in a great performance against a strong World Champion.  The fight ebbed and flowed, and after 12 tough rounds the official decision was a draw, one judge given it to Crolla, one judge to Perez and one judge scoring a draw.  I had Crolla nicking it by 1 round, Perez had 2 point deducted for low blows, but the judges still gave a draw which I find surprising.  I am hoping there will be a rematch, prior to the fight I was unsure if Crolla was a genuine world class contender, but last night he showed he was.

In other fights in Manchester, Martin Murray had a comfortable win at his new weight of Super Middleweight.  I have always been a fan of Murray, and at Super Middleweight he looks big and strong, is some talk of a fight against Calum Smith in the future, which I think will be a great match up.

Tyrone Nurse and Chris Jenkins fought out a draw for the vacant British Light Welterweight Title, I had Nurse just winning, but nobody seemed to shocked by the draw, as the title is vacant expect a rematch soon.  Sam Eggington defeated Glenn Foot for the British and Commonwealth Welterweight Titles, the 21 year old Eggington, totally dominated Foot, and the fight was stopped in the ninth round.  Egginton is improving fight after fight, is impressing me more and more, he is not yet at world level, but has plenty of time on his hands, and for me now needs to fight at European level he is ready, and see how he goes.

Yet another exciting night of boxing with some real British talent on show.

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