Frampton must fight me next claims Santa Cruz

Leo Santa Cruz has confirmed that there is a rematch clause between himself and Carl Frampton, and believes that ‘The Jackal’ must face him in his next bout.

Frampton defeated the Mexican-American last month at the Barclays Centre in New York via majority decision (114-114, 117-111, 116-112) to take the WBA featherweight title.

Much talk in the aftermath has been about a rematch to the fight of the year contender, although Frampton himself would prefer a defence in Belfast this December first.

Santa Cruz, understandably, is desperate to avenge his sole career defeat and claimed that Frampton is contractually mandated to face him in his next fight.

El Terremoto told ES News that “we want to go back to the gym and train harder and get the rematch.”

“I think he can’t fight nobody else until he fights me.”

In terms of location, Santa Cruz of course would prefer the fight to be in his home city of Los Angeles, but feels that the champion Frampton would rather not face a rematch in the City of Angels – something the Belfast man has already confirmed as a point of principle.

With LA seemingly out of the question, Santa Cruz argues that Las Vegas is the best choice, as he perceives Frampton to have had ‘home’ advantage for the initial fight in New York due to the large Irish-American population on the US East Coast.

The 28 year old described how “I want to fight where my peoples are, I want to fight here in LA, I don’t think Carl Frampton is gonna want to fight in LA, so maybe in Vegas.”

“Neutral ground, a lot of people can come there and also my people can go to Vegas too.

“So hopefully it happens in Vegas, we’re working for it, and hopefully it happens in Vegas.”

In terms of neutrality, it should be noted that Las Vegas is eighteen times (around 7,500 kilometers) closer to Los Angeles than Belfast.