Frampton says there were fears McGuigan ‘would attack’ Hearn in Quigg talks

Carl Frampton claims fear of a physical confrontation meant Barry McGuigan couldn’t negotiate with Eddie Hearn to make the PPV clash with Scott Quigg.

Hearn had worked with McGuigan promoting ‘The Jackal’ on Paul McCloskey undercards up and until a split in 2013.

The former two-weight world champion bemoaned a lack of love from the Matchroom boss at that time and established Cyclone Promotions with the McGuigans.

However, the Irish greats, McGuigan as manager and Frampton as fighter, did work with Hearn again in making the massive clash with Quigg three years later.

The build-up was tension-filled and there were fall outs and drama right up until fight day with the public offer on Sky Sports News, ‘dressing room gate’, coaches Shane McGuigan and Joe Gallagher almost trading blows and plenty more.

There was also dramatics during the negotiation phase according to Frampton as former super featherweight champion of the world, McGuigan couldn’t talk directly to Katie Taylor, Caoimhin Agyarko and Paddy Donovan’s promoter.

The Belfast man claims he had no time for Hearn at the time but claims his opinion has changed since.

“My opinion on him has completely changed,” the Belfast boxer said when speaking to Joe about his book.

“I see Eddie Hearn for what he is, he is a top promotor, and when we see each other from time to time, we would shake hands.

“But that was me again being influenced by the McGuigans and how they saw Eddie Hearn.

“Barry McGuigan was supposed to be my manager and supposedly negotiating fights for me, but for the Quigg fight, he would have had to negotiate with Eddie Hearn.

“But it was left up to Jake McGuigan and Sandra to negotiate terms for that fight because they were fearful that Barry would attack Eddie Hearn at any sort of meeting, genuinely.

“I was easily influenced. Eddie is a promotor, a salesman, he’s one of the top promotors in the world and I have a lot of respect for him, but I was influenced by a lot of people who didn’t like him, so I just thought that ‘I don’t like him as well.'”