Carl Frampton Honored, Awarded With an MBE

Northern Ireland's Carl Frampton has been awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours list for services to boxing.

The 28-year-old from Belfast is the reigning IBF super-bantamweight champion and is set to fight WBA belt-holder Scott Quigg in a unification bout in Manchester on February 27 next year.

Nicknamed the Jackal, he made his professional debut in 2009 and is yet to be beaten in 21 fights, winning 14 of them by knock-out.

Frampton was made to work hard in his most recent title defence, suffering two first-round knockdowns against Alejandro Gonzalez in El Paso in July before going on to win the fight on points. However, his manager Barry McGuigan, a former world champion himself, said it was wrong for people to question his fighter's ability because of that.

"I'm aware of the criticism and the sources and I'm not going to waste my time,'' McGuigan told the Belfast Telegraph in the summer.

"I know how good Carl Frampton is and how good he is going to become.

"We had 2.5 million UK viewers, two million viewers in the States and we had 69 per cent of the audience in Northern Ireland and those figures speak for themselves.

"We know Carl was not at his very best, but he recovered and won nine or 10 of the 12 rounds and the Americans loved him and want him back. We have a path for Carl and we know he is going to go down as an all-time great fighter.''

Frampton earned his IBF belt in September 2014 with a unanimous points victory over Kiko Martinez in Belfast.

Like his mentor McGuigan, Frampton, who is from a Protestant background but is married to a Catholic, has succeeded in drawing support from either side of the sectarian divide.

In an interview with the BBC in 2014, McGuigan said: "Carl is doing what I did.

"He's a beacon for peace and reconciliation and represents the future of Northern Ireland. Albeit, it's not as treacherous at the moment - we don't have the Troubles like we did back then.''