Frampton: The UK Has 14 World Champions - Not All Are Legit!

By Edward Chaykovsky

Late last month, WBA super featherweight champion Carl Frampton continued the UK's run of impressive victories and world title conquests when he won a twelve round decision over Leo Santa Cruz at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

The British boxing scene is running wild at the moment. There are currently 14 world champions from UK. Some of their top fighters will be involved in major contests in the comings weeks. IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook moves up by 13 pounds to fight middleweight king Gennady Golovkin, and WBO 154-pound champion Liam Smith defends against Canelo Alvarez.

Frampton admits there are a lot of solid world champions from the UK, but also says there also a lot of beltholders who are being matched against lackluster talent to pad their records.

Several of the UK champions are fighting under the banner of Eddie Hearn's Matchroom Sport and being pushed through his television deal with Sky Sports. Frampton is not impressed with everyone being showcased on their network.

“There are some good fighters, some of the Sky guys,” says Frampton to City AM. “But there’s a lot of fighters fighting guys with inflated records. It looks good and to the casual fan it’s unbelievable but the real boxing fans know what it’s really about."

“There’s so many world titles floating around now. You talk about 14 world champions in the UK. I wouldn’t say there are 14 legitimate champions. But I suppose it’s good for boxing in a way: it’s getting a lot of headlines, a lot of coverage in the papers and on local news stations."

One fighter in particular who Frampton believes was a Sky Sports hype job, was his domestic rival Scott Quigg. Frampton decisioned him back in February to unify the WBA/IBF titles at super bantamweight.

“I genuinely believed that he [Quigg] was a massive Sky TV hype job. I didn’t really have to get out of first gear to win that fight,” says Frampton. “It could have been a good fight but he didn’t want to fight for six or seven rounds. And it takes two to tango.”