Major British stars Carl Frampton and Tyson Fury both return on the same bill in Northern Ireland on Saturday. Are either of them in tough at all?
Carl Frampton (25-1, 14 KOs) has been a fighter at the top level of the sport for years now. He won his first super bantamweight title in 2014 from Kiko Martinez and defended it a few times before unifying the belt with Scott Quigg’s in 2016 in what was a pretty big fight for the weight. Unfortunately, the fight was a bid of a dud. That wasn’t a super satisfying performance, but Frampton got the win and it set up a big featherweight debut against Leo Santa Cruz.
Frampton again got the win against the previously unbeaten Santa Cruz with an excellent performance in the summer of 2016. Unlike the big let down in the Quigg fight, this one was engaging and fought at a very high level. Frampton did narrowly lose the rematch the following January, however and he still hasn’t been able to secure the trilogy fight. Instead, he has fought a tune up against Horacio Garcia before taking down an aged and faded Nonito Donaire in April. Really, the fight game has been a little uneventful for the Irish star since losing his belt.
Uneventful is never a word that could be used to describe former heavyweight king and forever clown Tyson Fury. Prior to fighting long reigning heavyweight king Wladimir Klitschko in 2015, Tyson Fury (26-0, 19 KOs) wasn’t looked at like he is now though. He was a contender in the division for sure coming off improved, dominant performances against Derek Chisora and Christian Hammer, but he wasn’t expected to pull off the win against Klitschko any more than the previous twenty two men were able to.
Sure, he brought some interesting intangibles in the form of his somewhat reckless personality and in having a rare size advantage over the dominant champion, but he still wasn’t supposed to win. Yet, he did. Over the course of twelve rounds against the era’s top heavyweight in Wladimir Klitschko, Fury shut him down. Wlad never got any offense going. Neither did Fury, really, but he got in just enough work nick enough rounds to get the fight on the cards. It was a pretty terrible fight in truth, but also a landmark one. The heavyweight king had fallen and a new one stood in his place.
A huge money rematch was booked, but it never happened. Instead Tyson Fury fell apart. First it was postponed a few months for a sprained ankle. Then Fury started acting notably erratically even for himself and the rematch was eventually called off altogether due to him being “medically unfit to compete” as he battled mental illness on some level amid rumors of substance abuse. He followed that by ballooning in weight up to close to 400 pounds. It looked for all the while that he’d never fight again.
Fight again he did though. Just two months ago a 270 plus pound version of Tyson Fury stepped in the ring to fight a lower level cruiserweight after two and a half years away. The matchmaking was garbage and the fight somehow even worse, but that doesn’t really matter. What was important was that The Gypsy King was healthy enough mentally and physically to be back in the ring screwing around once again.
So who are the opponents here and do they stand a chance? In the case of Italian heavyweight Francesco Pianeta (35-4-1, 24 KOs), the answer is a resounding no. Fury isn’t ready yet for a truly live opponent and he has little to worry about here. Pianeta has been soundly trounced by much lower level fighters than Tyson Fury. Former Olympian Luke Jackson (16-0, 7 KOs) is a better matchup for Carl Frampton, but only in the same way that biting a raw onion is better than biting a moldy onion. It looks like a mismatch on paper and probably will be, but it is also pretty hard to judge this given that we don’t know how good the Australian actually might be. Plus, he has gotten on Carl’s skin clearly and the Irish star is just as clearly looking past Luke Jackson to bigger fights. Jackson’s amateur credentials plus Frampton’s mind state do maybe indicate that something competitive could just happen here if you squint at it from the right distance, but it feels like a long shot. For in ring action purists, I don’t think this will be a compelling watch.
Still, if you want to watch it, tune in on BT Sport in the UK or visit Showtime’s social media pages for a free stream if you’re American. I don’t have an exact start just time yet though.
