World Weekend Boxing Roundup: Frampton Defeats Quigg

The battle of Britain was decided last night at the cavernous Manchester Arena where super bantamweight world champions Carl Frampton and Scott Quigg tangled over the full scheduled 12 rounds.

The long awaited clash was a slow starter as Frampton’s quicker footwork and ever present jab kept the harder punching Quigg behind a high guard for the first half of the contest.

Quigg blocked almost everything Frampton threw but the Manchester man hardly fired off a shot, looking for the perfect one punch KO opportunity and also perhaps hoping to tire his adversary and force a close quarters slugfest.

That did occur by the eighth round with Frampton giving as good as he got except for a hard shot that Quigg finally got through in the ninth that seemed to hurt the Belfast man.

The final two rounds featured intense two-way action that saw Quigg score the harder punches but his surge came too late in the contest to overcome Frampton’s higher activity rate for most of the rounds.

When the scores were read Frampton won two cards by a 116-112 margin while Quigg was awarded the third by a score of 115-113.

IBF champ Carl Frampton adds Quigg’s WBA belt to his trophy cabinet and remains undefeated at 22-0 (14). The 29 year old must now defend his WBA crown against the recognized top man at super bantamweight, masterful southpaw Guillermo Rigondeaux, who must first get past James “Jazza” Dickens on March 12 in Liverpool.

Scott Quigg suffers his first loss, dropping to 31-1-2 (23), but should be able to get his career back on track with a couple of activity bouts before making another run at world honors.

A former rival at super bantam of both Quigg and Frampton, Spain’s former IBF champ Kiko Martinez, went to America last night to try and lift the WBA featherweight belt from Leo Santa Cruz at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

But the much taller Santa Cruz, a former world champ at bantam and super bantam, showed his superiority from the start, dropping Martinez on two occasions during a torrid first frame.

The challenger regrouped and came forward without fail, landing good shots as Santa Cruz surprisingly fought Martinez at his own game but the Californian was determined to break down his rival’s resistance.

That happened in the fifth as Santa Cruz was hammering Martinez to the point that the contest was halted at 2:09 of the round.

Santa Cruz is now 11-0 in world title contests and 32-0-1 (18) overall while Martinez falls to 35-7 (26).

The undercard saw a rematch between Julio Ceja, 30-2 (27), and Hugo Ruiz, 36-3 (32), for the vacant WBC super bantam strap.

In August of last year, Ceja stopping Ruiz in the fifth but this time the tables were turned as Ruiz stopped Ceja at 0:51 of the first round after Ceja was dropped and reportedly suffered a leg injury.

In New York’s famed Madison Square Garden, WBO super lightweight boss Terence Crawford, 28-0 (20), was given a very hard time by veteran Hank Lundy, 26-6-1 (13).

Lundy took the fight to the switch-hitting champion, who characteristically started slow, studying his opponent until he had determined the rhythm of the challenger’s offense.

Once that occurred, Crawford wasted no time in dismantling Lundy, who was battered in the fifth frame until the action was called off at 2:09 of the round.

Crawford could be headed into a unification clash with towering WBC titlist Viktor Postol this summer.