Unbeaten Irish star Carl Frampton Tweeted moments ago how his planned challenge of reigning WBA featherweight champion Leo Santa Cruz has been agreed and will go ahead at a date to be confirmed in New York this summer (venue also still to be made official, but Barclays Centre looks a strong possibility). Frampton’s manager Barry McGuigan also took to social media to announce how a deal has been reached for the fight to go ahead.
“We have reached an agreement for@RealCFrampton to face @leosantacruz in late summer in NYC. Details to follow next week #monsterfight,” McGuigan wrote.
Frampton, who was recently stripped of the WBA super-bantamweight title he added to his IBF belt with a big win over Scott Quigg in February, chose not to face Guillermo Rigondeaux and takes a move up in weight instead. Both Frampton, 22-0(14) and McGuigan feel the fight with Mexican warrior Santa Cruz, 32-0-1(18) will result in far more excitement than a bout with the slick Cuban would have produced.
Frampton is looking forward to becoming a two-weight world champion, in what will be his second fight in America. Santa Cruz, the younger man by two years at age 27, has engaged in a number of thrilling fights, and the summer showdown looks like being another fan-friendly battle. Santa Cruz, like Frampton will do, moved up from 122-pounds last year, and before that, in 2013, he moved up from bantamweight. Now a three-weight world champion, Santa Cruz will be ready and willing to go through anything Frampton can bring in order to keep his 126-pound crown.
An excellent pressure fighter who is tough and durable, Santa Cruz will be meeting in Frampton a fighter with a style to perfectly gel with his own. This one has slugfest written all over it. The two fighters have a common opponent in Spain’s Kiko Martinez, who Santa Cruz stopped in 5 rounds in his last fight, on the same February night Frampton out-pointed Quigg. Frampton owns a 9th-round stoppage and a 12-round points win over Martinez.
Who wins in the summer? A very tough fight to pick.