Frampton And Quigg Continue To Bicker, Fight Remains In Limbo

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quigg framptonEddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport announced a few weeks ago, amid much fanfare, that negotiations between his own company and Cyclone Promotions had stalled while trying to get WBA World super-bantamweight champion Scott Quigg (30-0-2, 22KO’s) and corresponding IBF titlist Carl Frampton (20-0, 14KO’s) together for a British super fight for the modern era.

Hearn, who represents Quigg, professed negotiations had “hit a brick wall” soon after talks began and because of this made a very public offer to Frampton for £1,500,000 as a guarantee to show up in Manchester in July to get it on. This ploy looked designed to prompt Frampton’s team into action in order to save face but has had little effect on proceedings as of yet.

Now Frampton has had his say as reported on Skysports.com via The Belfast Telegraph, and he paints a slightly different picture, saying it is Hearn and Matchroom who are causing the delay.

“This fight can be made if Hearn will have a meeting with us. How do you make a fight if the other team won’t have a meeting? Our team had one meeting with Hearn, and everyone thought it went well and then they came out with the £1.5m offer for Manchester. Negotiations had not hit a brick wall.”

“I’m the champion and they want me to go to Manchester and they promote the show. I hope the fight can be made, but it can’t be made if people won’t talk. Even if it doesn’t get made for the summer, I have plenty of options – a lot more than he does that’s for sure, so everything will be rosy for us.”

The fight looked a sure thing after Frampton beat Chris Avalos in his hometown Belfast, Northern Ireland on February 28th this year. Quigg was invited into the ring, and both men stated their intentions over the microphone to get this fight made, but even then there were signs of some of the stumbling blocks that may arise in negotiations. Barry McGuigan, head of Cyclone Promotion, pointedly told Quigg he needs to “remember who the real world champion is”, a remark unlikely to be well received by any fighter.

That sentiment has been echoed above by Frampton. He sees himself as the legit champion because he beat Kiko Martinez for the IBF whereas Quigg was elevated from ‘interim’ status by the WBA and began his reign with a draw Yoandris Salinas eighteen months ago. To what extent comments like these are impacting negotiations is hard to determine, but Frampton believes he has plenty of options outside of Quigg.

Quigg, who has also stated his unwillingness to wait around for this fight, is eager to return to action after a broken hand sidelined him after his last defence in November against Hidenori Otake.

For a lucrative and sought-after unification fight like this -that will surely evoke partisan support from different nationalities inside the UK- to slip through the net would a travesty. But without all the information at hand it is hard to say which party is more at fault. As is often the case in boxing it is almost certainly six of one, half-a-dozen of the other.