By Elliot Foster
Carl Frampton and Leo Santa Cruz will meet for a second time in the new year –– and the fight now has a UK broadcaster.
Their return, for the former’s Super WBA featherweight world title which he took from the latter on points on July 30 at the Barclays Center in New York, will be screened exclusively live on Sky Sports on these shores.
Frampton’s first fight with Santa Cruz, into which he entered as the challenger, was aired by BoxNation, but its broadcasting rival has now scooped up the rematch, which is set for January 28 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Showtime will screen the fight in the States.
The news of the Frampton-Santa Cruz II addition to the already packed Sky Sports schedule comes shortly after the channel also confirmed they will show James DeGale’s January 14 unification fight with Badou Jack for the IBF and WBC super-middleweight world titles.
Sky Sports also have two Box Office cards scheduled for consecutive months. David Haye meets Tony Bellew in a mouthwatering heavyweight showdown at the O2 Arena in London on March 4 and Anthony Joshua faces the toughest test of his career to date, on April 29 at Wembley Stadium, in what could arguably be the biggest fight in British boxing history. He takes on Wladimir Klitschko, the former Ukrainian kingpin, in a defence of the IBF heavyweight world title. The vacant WBA Super and IBO belts will also be at stake.
With the move to add the Frampton-Santa Cruz rematch to its schedule, Sky Sports is clearly keen to bolster the position as the UK’s leading boxing broadcaster.
Gennady Golovkin’s March 18 showdown with Daniel Jacobs, at Madison Square Garden for the IBF, IBO, WBA Super and WBC middleweight titles, has yet to have a UK broadcaster confirmed and the rumour is that Sky will go all-out to add that fight to its ever-bulging calendar.
