Carl Frampton calls for Featherweight World Boxing Super Series and reveals his dream line-up
Carl Frampton [23(14)-1(0)] wants to compete in a featherweight World Boxing Super Series (WBSS), and ‘The Jackal’ even has an ideal line-up.
The WBSS has made a big impression in the boxing world over the past few weeks as the ongoing quarter finals continue at a breakneck speed.
The single elimination competition has a prize pool of $50,000,000 which will be split across the cruiserweight and super middleweight divisions in Season 1.
Multiple champions have signed up for the new venture, with semi-finals to take place at the start of next year before finals in Saudi Arabia in May where the winners of the Muhammad Ali Trophy will be decided..
Former two-weight champion Frampton is hopeful that the featherweight division will be one of the two classes that feature in Season 2 next Autumn – something which WBSS organiser Kalle Sauerland has expressed his interest and approval.
The Belfast 30 year old, who makes his return to the ring against Horacia Garcia at the SSE Odyssey Arena on Saturday November 18th, has called on some of the top names in the featherweight division to sign up.
Frampton stated in his weekly column for the Sunday Life that “the World Boxing Super Series has proved to be a huge hit with fans and that’s why I’m calling on all the top featherweights to make our division the next one to be part of this brilliant event.”
“I believe there’s not a more exciting division in boxing than the featherweights – only the welterweights match up to the list of eight fighters who I would like to see going up against each other.”
The Tigers Bay boxer would like to see all four world champions at 126lbs feature, and he outlined how “along with myself, you would have to have Leo Santa Cruz (WBA champion), Oscar Valdez (WBO champion), Gary Russell Jr (WBC champion), Lee Selby (IBF champion), Abner Mares, Jo Jo Diaz, and Guillermo Rigondeaux.”
“When you look at that line-up it just adds up to great fight after great fight so I would love the boxers and their management teams to make it happen.”
“Even if some of the guys I’ve picked didn’t want to be in it, we could have Scott Quigg and Josh Warrington as replacements.”
Logistically, Frampton believes that two of the quarter finals could be considered basically confirmed, with Santa Cruz and Mares likely to rematch while Gary Russell is also set to defend his title against JoJo Diaz.
Frampton feels that he would warrant the #2 position in the seedings, ahead of three of the current champs. This would give Frampton a choice of opponents in the draft gala and the Ulsterman has seemingly suggested that he would choose an opening quarter final fight with Cuban maestro Rigondeaux.
Rigondeaux has long called for a fight with Frampton, and the former unified super bantamweight champion jumps up to super featherweight for a dream fight with Vasyl Lomachenko.
Frampton reasoned that “Santa Cruz would be the number one seed because of his victory over me and I think I could be the number two seed because of my win over him in 2016, even though I don’t have a title.”
“To think that I could end up in fights with Rigo, Valdez, and then a big third fight with Santa Cruz, in a format that does away with all the obstacles that come about when rival promoters are trying to strike a deal, is very exciting and has to be something that Kalle Sauerland, who’s running the series, has to surely look at.”
