Past his prime? Josh Warrington questions Carl Frampton

Josh Warrington believes Carl Frampton is past his sell-by date.

The Leeds native believes his December 22nd world title challenger has reached the summit in terms of his potential and is working his way down the mountain.

Frampton’s first defeat has came in January 2017 in a rematch with decorated and quality operator Leo Santa Cruz but has since changed teams swapping the McGuigan family for Frank Warren, Johnney Roye, and Jamie Moore.

After a period of inactivity prompted by a bizarre injury to Andreas Gutierrez, ‘The Jackal’ has put three wins together.

Victories over Horacio Garcia, Nonito Donaire and Luke Jackson have proved warm up for a shot at Warrington’s IBF featherweight world title. 

Indeed, Frampton argues he is back to his best and fitter than ever, but his promotional stablemate and world title rival disagrees, believing the two-weight champion to have lost his edge.

“I don’t think so,” responded the 27-year-old to the question of whether his 31-year-old challenger is in his prime years.

“We’ll see on the 22nd and obviously he is going to train like a demon. He is going to come in there believing he is back to his best, but he has had a lot going on outside of boxing and had a bit of inactivity after the Santa Cruz fight,” he continued before analysing Frampton’s recent performances.

“Alright, he had a short camp for the Horacio Garcia fight, but I don’t think he can take too much away from that. With Donaire he did what he had to do to win and I don’t think Luke Jackson posed too much of a threat.

“Something tells me he is just not the same Carl Frampton as he was.

“Has he lost a little bit of edge? I don’t know.”

While Warrington argues the Belfast fighter’s best years may be behind him the world champion believes he is entering his peak.

“I do know that I am reaching my peak years,” said the Englishman who is making the first defence of a belt he won when he upset Lee Selby at Elland Road in May.

“Before my last fight I would have thought I would just be happy to win, but I came out of the ring thinking ‘who’s next?’. The fire is burning more than ever in the belly and I’ve worked hard to win this world title.”

“Now I’ve got it I want to keep it and finish 2018 as champion with two massive wins. The first at Elland Road making history for the city of Leeds, my kids being born and now this could be the perfect end to my year.”