“I lost plenty of times as an amateur and it’s hard” – Frampton gutted for emotional Cummings

By Rob Brennan at Ringside

Carl Frampton is backing his stablemate, Conrad Cummings, to bounce back from his controversial defeat at the gloves of Ronny Mittag at the Wembley Arena on Friday night.

The German walked away with the IBF Inter-Continental middleweight strap after 10 tough rounds which the Tyrone native lose out on a split decision, with two judges scoring the bout 96-94 in favour of the German and the other to the Coalisland man by the same margin.

It was also the first defeat of trainer, Shane McGuigan’s, career – but Frampton believes two of the judges got it wrong.

Frampton told Irish-Boxing.com that “I thought Conrad won the fight. I thought he won it wide, I gave him it 7 rounds to 3. I’m not being biased, I genuinely believe that. If you scroll through Twitter, most people are of the same opinion.”

“I feel bad for him. I genuinely feel gutted. I spoke to him after and obviously he was gutted. It would be a different story if he actually lost the fight but the judges just stole it on him.”

Frampton admitted that “I think there were a few rounds that were close at the start but I think in the last few rounds he ran away with it.”

Mittag’s right eye was heavily swollen at the end of the fight and with blood streaming from his nose from the early stages, it looked like Cummings’ more patient approach would see if sustain his unbeaten record, only for the officials to see otherwise.

Frampton thought Cummings followed McGuigan’s game plan well.

‘The Jackal’ described how “the game plan was to be a bit more relaxed and not over eager and he did that. If you look at Mittag’s face and you look at Conrad’s after the fight and you tell me who won the fight?”

The two-weight world champion defends his WBA featherweight title against Leo Santa Cruz in Las Vegas on January 28th, where he will look to beat the Mexican for the second time, and hopes Cummings can get back to winning ways soon.

Frampton noted how “I lost plenty of times as an amateur and it’s hard, you know, but you get over it. My advice would be to get him out as soon as possible. Maybe get a rematch. Every other day of the week, he beats that guy and he would have done if the judges had not been involved.”

“My advice would be to get him out again, sooner rather than later.”

“He will take this hard. He is an emotional enough person and he takes his career very serious.”

“I think that there is still an awful lot more to come. I hope that people can get to see the real Conrad. Nobody has really seen him. I’ve seen him in the gym beating up world class fighters in sparring, but he hasn’t really produced that yet in a fight.”

“Rest up for a week or so and get back a.s.a.p – that would be my advice.”