Irish manager of featherweight contender calls for Carl Frampton fight
A manager who is no stranger to trying to secure his fighter a match-up with Carl Frampton is now back on the hunt.
Cork’s Gary Hyde, of Nowhere2Hyde, managed Cuban maestro Guillermo Rigondeaux for a period while he held the WBA and WBO super bantamweight titles. During that time it was his desire to make a unification with Belfast’s Frampton, who held the IBF belt.
The fight would never get made, with Rigondeaux’s lack of financial appeal and unattractive style consistently cited. The Caribbean boxer would then be stripped of his WBO belt and demoted to WBA ‘champion in recess,’ thus clearing a path for Frampton and bitter rival Scott Quigg to take part in an pay-per-view IBF and WBA unification at the Manchester Arena.
Rigondeaux and Hyde have since parted company, but the Munster manager last year signed up another potential Carl Frampton opponent in the form of South African former WBA featherweight champion Simpiwe Vetyeka [29(17)-3(0)].
V12 is actually training in Ireland at the moment for a fight in Casablanca, Morocco, on February 18th, a card which will feature the debut of Nowhere2Hyde stablemate and World Amateur Champion Mohammed Rabii.
Hyde, Rabii, Vetyeka, and Gevorg Khatchikian have been travelling around Ireland for sparring recently, sharing the ring with the three McKenna brothers in Monaghan among others.
With the Irish connection and Vetyeka’s WBA ranking, Hyde feels that now is the perfect time for a fight with Frampton.
He said that “we couldn’t get Carl against Rigo because they were protecting his 0. Now that the 0 is gone, let’s get it on against WBA no.5 Simpiwe Vetyeka.”
“No reason why this fight can’t be made. We offered it to Barry [McGuigan, Frampton’s manager] after Frampton-Santa-Cruz 1 but, like all the the Rigo-Frampton offers, he reneged (ignored).”
“Vetyeka is training in Cork for a 10 round February 18th fight, so let’s do Windsor Park in May or June.”
“Let’s get it on Barry. Sure we’d drive up the road to Belfast for it.”
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Eric Donovan joins Gavan Casey and Joe O’Neill on Episode 2 of the Irish Boxing Show:
