?I had a good game plan. But I won it with my heart, not with my head, and I got my hand raised. I won ? because I didn?t lose control ??
Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, in a fight televised live on Showtime Championship Boxing, former super bantamweight champion Carl ?The Jackal? Frampton (21-0, 14 KOs), the sweet scientist from Belfast, Northern Ireland, outpointed reigning and defending WBA World featherweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (32-1-1, 18 KOs), from Los Angeles by way of Huetamo, Michoac?n de Ocampo, Mexico, handing ?El Terremoto? his first loss as a professional.
Fighting out of the red corner in light blue trunks, Frampton was the underdog looking to make history.
Santa Cruz, fighting out of the blue corner in white trunks with gold trim, is impossible not to like. He always comes forward. He loves to fight.
But a pattern developed early in the fight and persisted to the end. There were deviations depending on the action, but it appeared, even in the opening rounds, that Frampton was going to win.
He has fast hands and feet. He fights moving forward. He can fight going back. He can get off first or counterpunch. He goes to the head and body. He will mix it up. He will make you miss. He will beat you to the punch.
Carl Frampton has it all.
Frampton staggered Santa Cruz with a left hook in round two and asserted his superiority as the rounds progressed. The action was back and forth and thrilling, but Santa Cruz got the worst of it, it wasn?t even close.
?I had a good game plan,? said Frampton after the fight. ?But I won it with my heart, not with my head, and I got my hand raised. I won ? because I didn?t lose control.?
?I earned his respect early in the fight with my distance control and hard punching.?
Frampton is mapping his career like a cartographer maps uncharted territory.
?I wanted to be in a fight people would remember,? he said. ?I wanted to be in with true champions like Leo Santa Cruz. This guy is a three-weight world champion. He is a true warrior and I respect him a hell of a lot.?
Santa Cruz thought he had done enough to earn the nod.
?It was a tough fight from the beginning,? he said. ?We knew it was going to be a tough fight, but I thought it was close when I?m in there throwing. Maybe the judges were hearing the crowd and thought that every little punch was scoring.?
But Leo has nothing but respect for Frampton?s performance.
Santa Cruz landed 255 of 1,002 punches thrown (25%). Frampton was more precise, landing 242 of 668 (36%).
?He?s a great champion,? said Santa Cruz, ?and he?s got a very difficult style. It?s hard to forget your first loss but I will go back to the gym and get a rematch.?
