Former two-weight world champion Carl Frampton is edging towards a Josh Warrington victory this Saturday night in Leeds against Kiko Martinez.
Martinez makes the first defence of his IBF featherweight title against the former champion in a rematch from their battle in 2017. Frampton, who won world honours at super-bantamweight and at featherweight, knows a thing or two about Martinez having fought him twice during his decorated career.
In 2013 at Belfast’s Odyssey Arena ‘The Jackal’ stopped ‘La Sensacion’ in nine rounds to become European super-bantamweight champion. Then over a year later at the city’s Titanic Quarter Frampton outpointed the Spaniard to become IBF world champion on a memorable night for Irish boxing.
Speaking to Boxing Social’s Ryan Elliott recently, Frampton said he was delighted for Martinez when he knocked out Kid Galahad last November to win the IBF featherweight title.
“I’ve a lot of respect for Kiko. Although there’s a language barrier between us, we always used to communicate on social media use the old Google Translate. I was delighted for him. He’s a real servant to boxing. He deserves it.
“He’s been involved in hard fights. He’s travelled the world, he’s not well supported in Spain, he’s done it all off his own back, him and his team.”
Discussing this weekend’s clash, Frampton said: “It’s a difficult fight for both guys. We still don’t know how much the Lara fight took out of Josh Warrington because the second fight was stopped early. The first fight he was probably in there longer than he should have been and that can have an effect on you. He’s got to be the favourite in the fight but the fight they had previously was very, very close. I just fancy Josh but it’s a good fight.”
Images: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing