By Michael Collins: Commonwealth super bantamweight champion Carl Frampton (11-0, 7 KO’s) will be making his first defense of his strap on Saturday night against the light hitting Kris Hughes (15-1, 1 KO’s) at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, London, UK.
This should fairly safe fight for the 24-year-old Frampton as long as he gets inside on Hughes to punish him. The southpaw Hughes, 5’11” is all arms and legs and he’s quick with his right hooks. He’s not powerful but he catches his opponents with his fast hooks and it can cause problems. Hughes also has a sometime habit of holding and hitting, and that can be a problem for Frampton on Saturday.
Frampton is not nearly versatile as Hughes and is more limited to just throwing powerful right hands. Frampton’s jab is more of a pawing jab and his left hand pretty much useless because he rarely uses it and when he does, it has nothing on it.
You can tell that not a lot effort was made in developing that arm and he’s completely reliant on his right. That’s all bad because look at WBA super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux; he uses only his left hand and he’s very successful. Of course, Frampton doesn’t have 1/100th of the talent that Rigondeaux has going for him, so it might be in Frampton’s best interest to learn how to throw punches with his left hand and also learn how to throw a jab with power.
I don’t but I think Hughes has a chance here if he can bounce around the like he usually does and fight tall. He’s got to use his height and reach advantage and not the let the tiny 5’5” Frampton work his way to the inside to try and throw his right hands.
The good news is that Hughes will always know what’s coming from Frampton, but the bad news is he might get knocked out if he stands in front of him for any length of time. Hughes is a lot faster and I think he could catch Frampton by surprise with a lot of right hooks and left hands that he doesn’t see coming. We could see some knockdowns. And if the referee allows Hughes to hold and hit, he’ll do really well.