“I know everything about him” – former sparring partner Horacio Garcia has inside info on Carl Frampton

It’s wasn’t your typical final Frampton press conference.

Carl Frampton didn’t have to resort to his quick wit and certainly didn’t have to put a chirpy and defiant opponent in his place. It missed that bit of bite and as a result the audience participation ‘The Jackal’s’ media outings have become famed for.

The tension before the Kiko Martinez clashes was nowhere to be seen, the desire to knock someone out wasn’t verbalised in the manner in which it was against a brazen Chris Avalos, and while it was never going to match the Belfast Frampton-Quigg press conference, it surprisingly was the other end of the scale.

Horacio Garcia came to Belfast knowing he wasn’t going to stir things up and the reason why is more than heart warming. It wasn’t a smart tactical move from the Mexican, he wasn’t deliberately avoiding feeding the kind of insults and bold predictions Frampton has fueled off in past fight weeks.

The Belfast featherweight’s latest opponent couldn’t bring himself to trash talk an honourable man. No doubt Garcia will do his level best to hurt Frampton en-route to what would be a life changing win for him in the SSE Odyssey Arena on Saturday, but he wasn’t going to disrespect a ‘quality’ human being.

He couldn’t quite verbalise it himself, but his team explained that they all had huge admiration for ‘The Jackal’ as a fighter but more so as a man.

When Frampton took to the ring against Leo Santa Cruz for the second time in Las Vegas January last he wore the name of Alejandro ‘Cobríta’ González on his shorts.

The first fighter to drop the former two-weight world champion had been murdered near his home in Guadalajara the month previous, being found shot in his car aged just 23 years old. Frampton wanted to pay tribute to a fighter he gained massive respect for and the gesture won both him and Ireland massive respect in Mexico.

“The whole team is happy to be here because, although Ireland is very cold, the people are very warm,” said Ramiro Gonzalez, Golden Boy head of PR

“Also don’t forget Carl Frampton, when Gonzalez was killed, put his name on his trunks. That shows you the quality of Carl Frampton. Irish people and Mexicans are the same. big heart, very very good people and particularly in sport we don’t want to see anyone get hurt,” he added before revealing that is main reason they were respectful, professional and courteous in the build up to the fight.

“That’s why we didn’t do a lot of taking, we didn’t want to do big talk because not only is he an excellent fighter he is an excellent human being.”

Admiring Frampton doesn’t mean that the traveling party don’t plan on beating him this coming Saturday night. Indeed Gonzalez is confident his man can cause an upset.

That belief is enhanced by a feeling held by team Garcia that Mexican’s are ‘The Jackal’s’ achilles heel.

“Don’t forget this is not the first Mexican that Frampton has fought. For example Alejandro Gonzalez, Alejandro dropped Carl twice. Alejandro is from the same area as him and they knew each other. So he has been watching, learning and reading Frampton’s style and he was working on that.”

Garcia is a Mexican that has shared a ring with Frampton, albeit a sparring one, but he claims he learnt the popular fighters weaknesses from those sessions and plans to exploit them live on BT Sport on Saturday.

“I know everything about him. I have been in the ring with him and I have learnt his weaknesses. So I have a good starting point getting into the ring on Saturday,” the fighter explained.

Garcia is a close friend of superstar Canelo Alvarez, who is coming to Belfast to support his Golden Boy stablemate – and the Reynoso Brothers will be in the corner for the contender.

“Canelo has supported me from the start of my career and is coming to support me. Canelo is convinced I can win. There is publicity around this fight in Mexico, but not as much as here.”

“In Mexico not many know too much about Carl Frampton over here it is different. Those that know about the fight know it’s a risky fight and know it will be a good fight.”