CARL Frampton finished a horrible 2017 on a high note tonight – but he was taken right into the trenches by unheralded Mexican Horacio Garcia in a gruelling 10-rounder at the SSE Arena.
Few had expected Garcia to make life so difficult, he was a huge underdog with the bookies, and in the first three rounds those long odds looked justified as Frampton was in complete control.
Garcia was stalking forward but getting picked off with check left hooks and big rights as Frampton dictated the pace.
But, after throwing everything he had at the Mexican in those early rounds, it soon became clear that Garcia wasn’t for shifting. Big shots were landing from Frampton but having little effect.
This was not going to be an easy comeback to the big time.
Garcia kept coming – there was nothing particularly scientific about his work, but it wasn’t crude either as he pinned Frampton on the ropes a couple of times as the fight progressed.
And ‘The Jackal’ found himself on the canvas in the seventh, immediately pleading with referee Victor Loughlin that it was a slip. TV replays backed him up, but Loughlin was having none of it and the knockdown stood.
There were more tough rounds down the strait, and Frampton approached the 10th with a renewed sense of emergency, winging in big right hands. He knew he needed a big finish, and he got it.
The three judges all went for the Tigers Bay man, perhaps a little wider than Garcia deserved, but the crowd didn’t care as, with a mixture of joy and relief, they cheered the decision.
Unfortunately for Jamie Conlan his long-awaited world title shot ended in crushing defeat as he was dropped four times by Jerwin Ancajas before referee Steve Gray waved the fight off in the sixth round.
It was the shots to the body that killed Conlan all night in his bid for the IBF super-flyweight title, first touching canvas towards the end of the first and breathing heavy from then on. Typically, though, he refused to give up, battling back and catching the Filipino with a straight right in the second.
The Filipino opened a nasty cut above Conlan’s left eye later in the round, catching the west Belfast man on the break, and went body-snatching again in the third.
A straight right to the solar plexus sent Conlan towards the ropes before the Filpino pounced, unleashing a barrage of shots that had Conlan hunched over again on the canvas.
He isn’t known as ‘The Irish Arturo Gatti’ for no reason, and this was real Raging Bull stuff at times, but there was never going to be a Hollywood ending this time around.
The fourth round brought more of the same for Conlan, another Ancajas uppercut to the body leaving Conlan gasping for air as he struggled to keep Ancajas – a protégé of Manny Pacquiao - away.
Ancajas had a point deducted for two low blows in the fifth but there was a sense this was only a temporary reprieve. A case of if, rather than when, the fight was going to reach its conclusion.
The end eventually arrived in the sixth when an Ancajas hook landed around the back of Conlan’s head and sent him to the ground. Rather than give the 31-year-old another count, Gray waved the fight off, deeming that the home favourite had had enough.
Earlier in the evening, Paddy Barnes had got the ball rolling for the three Belfast boys headlining the bill with the best performance of his five-fight pro career to date.
In against tall Nicaraguan Eliecer Quezada, the two-time Olympic bronze medallist looked composed from the off, controlling the pace and landing some stinging body shots.
He made the breakthrough in the second, dropping his opponent with a short right hook and, although Quezada landed a couple of shots of his own in the third, Barnes was still in control.
Quezada was visibly tiring as the rounds wore on, and into the sixth offered very little as Barnes stalked him around the ring, as his transformation from amateur to pro star continues.
And he finished the job in some style, registering his first stoppage win with a lovely left hook right into the solar plexus that left Quezada crumpled on the canvas with no chance of beating the count.
