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Frampton plans to stay at super bantamweight

Carl Frampton was below his usual brilliant best for his U.S. debut at the weekend. ‘The Jackal’ comprehensively defeated Alejandro González Jr. at the Don Haskins Centre in El Paso, Texas – however he was dropped twice in the first round and seemed to lack sharpness throughout the fight.

Immediately after the fight, Frampton partly attributed the below-par performance to troubles making the 122lb super bantamweight limit, hinting that he may have to move up to featherweight. However, speaking to Off The Ball on Newstalk 106, Frampton admitted that, in the heat of the moment, he may have been a bit hasty with talk of moving up.

The Belfast man explained that the trouble making weight was more due to location and preparation issues, rather than physiological issues, revealing that “there was mistakes made. I think we were out of our comfort zone.”

“I’m used to making weight in Belfast, obviously it’s not as warm here, but we know where we’re going, what we’re doing, we know the right gyms to use, I know what I’m eating, I have my meals prepared and planned.”

On the difficulties that making weight in El Paso posed, Frampton continued, “there we’re so many things that was just alien to us all as a team. I had a lot of weight to lose the morning of the weigh-in, the most I’ve ever had to before.”

Therefore, Frampton believes that “I think that was just a misjudgment on our part. I think I can make super bantamweight properly. I live a clean life, I train hard all the time, but I think the last week, ten days in El Paso we could have done it a bit better if I’m being honest.”

On himself and Cyclone Promotions learning from their mistakes, Frampton stated that “I’m not going to put my head in the sand here. I know there were mistakes made. My team knows there were mistakes made and we’ll learn from them and I think I’ll become a better fighter from it.”

“We’ve had discussions already, we’ve already talked about the next move. We understand that preparation wasn’t excellent, especially when we got out to El Paso.”

If you don’t learn from these mistakes you’re never gonna improve. I’m a clever enough guy to understand that.

“All teams have bad days, and we had a bad day. I had a bad day with my performance, our team probably had a bad week or so. But you live and you learn and we go again.”

Joe O'Neill

Reporting on Irish boxing the past five years. Work has appeared on irish-boxing.com, Boxing News, the42.ie, and local and national media. Provide live ringside updates, occasional interviews, and special features on the future of Irish boxing. email: joneill6@tcd.ie

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