McGuigan believes Santa Cruz will not be able to “sustain” any improvements against Frampton

Trainer Shane McGuigan is “very confident” ahead of Carl Frampton’s WBA featherweight title rematch with Leo Santa Cruz later this month.

Frampton and Santa Cruz do battle again on January 28th in Las Vegas in a repeat of their Fight of the Year candidate, and the trainer of ‘The Jackal’ is anticipating an even wider margin of victory this time round.

The Belfast man took a majority-decision win (114:114, 117:111, 116:112) in the first meeting back in July at the Barclays Centre, and McGuigan believes that Santa Cruz will focus on his strengths rather than his faults – resulting in a repeat result for Frampton.

McGuigan, the youngest chief trainer of a world title winner in boxing history, also believes that Frampton has the capacity to improve ahead of the rematch at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

The Battersea-based coach told FightHype.com that “I don’t see how Leo Santa Cruz can do much different, he can apply a little bit more pressure.”

“He’s going to look at positives of that last fight. He’s going to look at the sixth round, the seventh, the ninth round, little rounds like that that he gather some hope from, but I just don’t see him being able to sustain that against Carl because he’ll getting hit hard, getting hit clean.”

“Carl also made a lot of mistakes, not just Leo Santa Cruz, in that fight, so they’re both going to learn – but I see the same decision but I see Carl winning a little bit more convincingly this time.”

Watch Shane McGuigan’s interview with FightHype.com in full below

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