Frampton: Santa Cruz is Definitely a Bigger Fight Than Quigg

By Victor Salazar 

New York - Carl Frampton (22-0,14 KO's) fought in front of a sold out M.E.N. Arena in Manchester when he defeated Scott Quigg earlier this year. So how does he top that? Move up a weight class to fight one of the top featherweights in the world in Leo Santa Cruz (32-0-1,18 KO's), and do it in the United States. All eyes of the boxing world and Frampton believes his fight with Santa Cruz if the biggest and toughest fight of his career.

"This is a much bigger fight," Frampton told BoxingScene.com in reference to his fight with Santa Cruz being bigger than Quigg.

"On the world stage this is a much bigger fight. Quigg outside of England, no one knows who he really is. People know him in Belfast but that's because of me. Santa Cruz is a superstar, 3 weight world champion, and he has a huge Mexican following, this is definitely the bigger fight."

Though the bet makes have Santa Cruz a favorite, Frampton feels the fight can go either way and that's what makes this fight an easy sell.

"This fights sells itself," Frampton said. "I respect all my opponents and Leo has been respectful to me so there hasn't been any need for the back and forth.I think the bookies and the media have Leo as the favorite. This a fight people want to see. I think I can definitely cause him some problems. He's says its a 50-50 fight, iIagree. We'll see on Saturday."

Frampton made a change in camp this time around coming to the United Stats. He arrived a month ago because he wanted to treat this journey as a business trip.

"I think the time distance from the west coast and east coast might be a slight pain so it might be a slight advantage for me but the point here was to do things the right way," explained Frampton. "We made mistakes against Alejandro Gonzalez in Texas the last time i came here. It was too much of a relaxed feel. We were here for a week so it felt like a holiday and not a training camp. So this time around, we were here to work. I've been injury free and been great in the gym."

Santa Cruz is famous for his relentless volume punching. Frampton feels at 126, he can match him punch for punch.

"At this weight at 126, I feel like I can stay as busy or busier than him if I have to. At 122, I probably couldn't to be honest and it was taking away from my punching power and my ability to take a punch. If i had stayed at 122, I'd probably fight 10 more fights and call it a career but I'm loving boxing again and training at 126."