By Cliff Rold
It’s hard not to like the story.
Barry McGuigan was one of those fighters who became a folk tale. He was the man who could bring, when he was in the ring, a unifying feeling to the boiling undercurrents of Northern Ireland. Despite a relatively short prime, McGuigan’s impact on boxing was so strongly felt it was enough to enshrine the former featherweight champion in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
A generation later, the story of boxing in Northern Ireland is adding a captivating new chapter. The folk hero remains, this time as the manager of a fighter who elevated his game, his resume, and his reach in 2016.
Entering the year, there were still some question marks around IBF 122-lb. titlist Carl Frampton. His US debut in July 2015 saw him come off the floor twice in the first round against the late Alejandro Gonzalez Jr. While he boxed well from there, there were looming tests that would prove just how good Frampton would be.
In 2016, he passed those tests with flying colors. That he did it as the visiting team in both of his fights on the year, against a pair of undefeated fellow beltholders, rounded out an impressive body of work.
He traveled to the Lancashire home turf of WBA titlist Scott Quigg for a long built unification showdown. Then he came across the pond to Brooklyn for a move to featherweight, unseating US-based WBA champion Leo Santa Cruz for a title in his second weight class.
In a long awaited showdown of undefeated champions, Carl Frampton (22-0, 14 KOs), of Belfast, Ireland won a twelve round unanimous decision over Scott Quigg (32-1-2, 23 KOs) of Lancashire, United Kingdom to keep his undefeated record in place and unified the IBF/WBA super bantamweight titles. The scores were 115-113 for Quigg, 116-112 for Frampton and 116-112 for Frampton.
The first half of the fight was controlled by Frampton's jab and edge in activity. Quigg was giving away rounds simply by default, by not being active and staying in a defensive shell for the most part. Quigg was struggling to get on the inside and couldn't get off with any of his shots.
Quigg picked up the activity in the seventh and started letting his hands go, but Frampton was landing with the better shots when they exchanged. The tempo continued to pick up for Quigg as he did good work in the first half of the eight, with Frampton landing hard counters in the second half. Quigg was going after the body in the ninth, digging and looking to break down the quicker man.
Quigg continued to push the pace in the tenth with Frampton appearing to look a bit tired at the start. Frampton decided to stand his ground and they were trading very hard shots to the body and going toe to toe with big shots to the head. Both fighters had their moments with hard punches landing.
They continued to trade some very hard shots in the eleventh. Quigg started pulling away in the final minute with hard punches, including a huge right hand that clipped Frampton hard on the jaw.
Frampton started very well at the start of the twelfth, using his experience to hit and not get hit as Quigg applied the pressure and was trying to land something big, but unable to close it out.
The Quigg win was a good start to the year but it would ultimately play as prologue to the real crowning of Frampton. Frampton-Quigg had its moments but never quite exploded. Frampton was just a little too good, a little too smart, and a little too quick for Quigg.
It would prove a greater struggle in his rise to 126 lbs.
With Frampton primed and Cruz composed, it was easy to suppose that the fight would catch fire, but although there were a few smoking embers it wasn’t until a give-and-take round six that life was breathed into it.
“El Terremoto” landed some shots that shook, prompting a response. As was the case in the Quigg fight, Frampton had succeeded in taking his opponent’s main game away from him: Quigg’s come forward head of steam was not present early and Cruz threw fewer shots than you would expect in the early rounds.
It is fitting that in the home city of Jay Z, Cruz effected a bit of a takeover once he found his range with the jab, spitting out lefts in a bid to prevent Frampton from taking the fight in close or establishing his own rhythm.
Frampton, though, resumed his uncanny knack of keeping the champion relatively quiet, sometimes shifting his weight backwards in order cruise away from swings. Those who had expected a cruise for Cruz must have shifted a little in their sofas as he failed to establish consistent control over his opponent.
Those pundits and fans could sit a little more comfortably by the eleventh, as he landed some of his most effective rights of the night, visibly draining some of the pep and vitality from Frampton. Frampton had started to tired at a time when you need physical and mental energy to negate someone as high-class as Cruz.
Due to its rhythmic, skilled and well-fought ebb and flow, the fight was a soul brother to James Toney’s first meeting with Mike McCallum, although without Toney’s clearer explosions of power punching, and, like Toney, Cruz carried the final two rounds. Was it enough to overturn Frampton’s smart and controlled early boxing?
Referee Harvey Dock, in his second world title fight at the venue in the space of a year, had little to do due to the clean yet combative nature of the bout. It was left to Guido Cavalleri 114-114 Frank Lombardi 116-112 Tom Schreck 117-111, who scored it 114-114, 112-116 and 111-117 respectively to hand Frampton a huge world title win in a second division.
In his biggest test to date, Frampton secured victory with the finest overall performance of his career. He moved, countered, and won exchanges through twelve thrilling rounds. Faced with a pair of high quality opponents in their prime, Frampton came up big when it mattered most. If one day we recall it as a critical step to his own place as a boxing folk hero, it would be no surprise.
No one did more in 2016. That’s why no one else is the Fighter of the Year.
Honorable Mention
Terence Crawford: In between a pair of dominant Jr. welterweight title defenses over veterans Hank Lundy and John Molina, Crawford staked a claim to history’s title in a second weight class. Genuine 1-2 matches between fighters in their prime don’t happen often enough in boxing. We got it at Jr. welterweight in 2016. Facing undefeated Viktor Postol in a 140 lb. unification battle in July, Crawford won going away. He dropped Postol twice in the fifth and won a clear unanimous decision, adding the WBC belt to the WBO crown he won in 2015.
Roman Gonzalez: The dominant figure at 112 lbs. and below in the last eight years ended his lineal flyweight title reign with a fight that was one-sided in scoring but competitive in the ring, defeating former Puerto Rican Olympian McWilliams Arroyo. Then he moved up three pounds to Jr. bantamweight in September and got the toughest fight of his career. Gonzalez started aggressive and built an early lead against undefeated WBC titlist Carlos Cuadras. Cuadras withstood the early attack and then starting dishing out punishment of his own. Will and volume kept Gonzalez ahead by night’s end but a badly bruised face displayed how tough a night it had been. Gonzalez became only the second man to win belts at 105, 108, 112, and 115 and he earned it the hard way in one of the year’s best fights.
Sergey Kovalev: The Russian marksmen faced three consensus top contenders in 2016. A whole lot of people think he went 3-0 on the year. He blasted out Jean Pascal in a rematch in January, forcing a retirement after seven. In July, he overcame a shaky start to score a knockdown and win a decision over Isaac Chilemba. Then came November and the most anticipated fight of the year for hardcore boxing fans. Kovalev dropped Andre Ward in the second round and, two the eyes of about 2/3 of boxing writers polled, did enough to hand the undefeated American his first loss. All three judges disagreed at narrow scores of 114-113. The public jury is still debating the outcome.
Vasyl Lomachenko: Lomachenko was one of the great amateurs. He may one day go down as a great professional. Since a loss in his second fight to Orlando Salido, he has won six straight title fights. In 2016, those two wins came in a new weight class. He started the year as the WBO featherweight titlist and added the WBO belt at 130 lbs. in June with a blistering one-punch knockout of durable veteran Roman Martinez. Then, in November, he turned a fight that looked solid on paper into the sort of clinic that reminded one of Floyd Mayweather-Diego Corrales. Undefeated Nicholas Walters looked like a test. Instead, he was a canvas for Lomachenko to paint on. The Ukrainian arguably won every round before forcing Walters to surrender after seven rounds.
Manny Pacquiao: Rebounding from a dominant loss to Floyd Mayweather in 2015, Pacquiao returned in 2016 to dominate a pair of top ten welterweights and show he’s still got plenty in the tank. In April, he dropped Timothy Bradley twice en route to the widest win in their trilogy. A retirement lasted long enough to sign his next fight, a November showdown with WBO welterweight titlist Jessie Vargas. He dropped Vargas in the second, won almost every round of the fight, and ended the year back in the title picture.
Joe Smith Jr.: When your name is as plain as Joe Smith, it takes a little extra to stand out from the crowd. Smith found that in a 3-0 campaign with three knockouts. The latter two fights are why he’s here. In June, he knocked out veteran contender Andrzej Fonfara in a single round. The win opened a door to an even bigger opportunity when he was picked as ‘safe enough’ for the farewell of Bernard Hopkins in December. The living legend showed his 51 years in the ring and finally ended up outside of it, knocked out for the first time. Smith went from club fighter to light heavyweight contender in 2016.
Andre Ward: Injuries and outside the ring management issues kept the former super middleweight champion largely on the shelf for three years. In 2016, he fought more than once in a calendar year for the first time since 2011. His decision over Sullivan Barrera in March looks even better now after Barrera stopped previously undefeated Vyacheslav Shabranskyy. Twelve rounds against Alexander Brand kept him busy in August with the Kovalev showdown looming. Against Kovalev, he battled back hard in the second half, improving his chances as the output from both men increased. No matter the controversy, Ward certainly made it close and had reason to feel like he earned the decision in his favor. Ward proved he was fully back amongst boxing’s elite and ended the year with the WBA, WBO, and IBF light heavyweight belts to show for it.
Shinsuke Yamanaka: The veteran Japanese bantamweight extended his WBC title reign to eleven defenses in 2016. It was the toughest year of his reign. He exchanged knockdowns with former 115 lb. titlist Liborio Solis in March, coming off the floor twice in round three to earn a unanimous decision. The win earned more credit when Solid appeared to do enough to unseat WBA titlist Jamie McDonnell later in the year only to suffer a debatable call on points. In September, Yamanaka faced former WBA champion Anselmo Moreno in a rematch of their closely contested 2015 contest. They produced an absolute classic with both men dropped and hurt multiple times. The shootout ended with Yamanaka scoring a seventh round knockout, cementing his place as the best bantamweight of the decade.
Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
