Financial details of Kiko Martinez vs ‘well looked after’ Carl Frampton II come out in court

Cyclone Promotions paid out over £500,000 to provide Carl Frampton with an ideal chance to win a world title, Blain McGuigan intimated in court yesterday.

On day 15 of the legal battle between former world champions and Irish boxing legends Barry McGuigan and Carl Frampton, McGuigan’s son Blain took to the stand.

The 37-year-old former musician turned promoter revealed details of the second Kiko Martinez fight when in the stand.

The eldest of the three McGuigan sons involved in Frampton’s career pre the 2017 split revealed the financial lengths they went to, to tempt Kiko Martinez to Belfast.

McGuigan suggests getting Martinez, a fighter ‘The Jackal’ had already defeated to put a world title on the line in Belfast was as good as it got in terms of world title opportunities – and told the High Court they paid out accordingly.

“It was hard for us because we had to work out a way of generating enough revenue to cover that cost and also to make enough money to pay Carl a good purse as well,” he said.

When asked by counsel for the McGuigan’s, Liam McCollum QC, if he could recall how much was agreed for the second Martinez fight, he continued: “It was $700,000 (£543,000): $100,000 (£77,500) to Gary Shaw (a co-promoter); $100,000 to Sergio Martinez, who was his current manager; $100,000 to Sampson Lewkowicz, who was his current manager and promoter, and then $400,000 (£310,000) to Kiko Martinez himself.”

The court heard it was Cyclone’s obligation to pay Martinez, and the company’s goal to minimise the costs as much as possible.

Blain McGuigan added: “We understood the magnitude of the chance of getting Kiko back to Belfast considering he’d been stopped by Carl 16 months before that.

“So we obviously tried to keep his purse down as much as we could, but we had to get him back here… that was the main goal.”

McGuigan added that by beating Martinez, Frampton “would become a world champion, which is every boxer’s goal when they turn professional, and it was our goal to get Carl to that point in his career… there haven’t been a huge amount of world champions from Northern Ireland so it was a big, big thing”.

Earlier in the case brought by Frampton against former manager Barry McGuigan for withheld earnings of up to £6m, it was alleged Frampton was kept in the dark with regard to financial matters.

Those claims were refuted by the promoter who once considered the former two weight world champion a ‘friend’.

One of the issues in the case is how much Mr Frampton was paid during the time he worked with the McGuigans from 2009 to 2017.

Blain McGuigan told the court that the boxer was paid well and was always consulted about financial matters.

“Carl was always kept informed,” he said.

“My dad insisted on him having the ability to check up on anything.”

Frampton is suing his former manager and Cyclone Promotions for withheld earnings. Barry McGuigan has a separate counter claim for loss of earnings.

Both men deny any wrong doing. The trail continues.