Sport

Carl Frampton lays out his 2020 vision as he prepares for visit of Jamel Herring in May

Carl Frampton lands a left hook to the body of Tyler McCreery in Las Vegas. Photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank
Carl Frampton lands a left hook to the body of Tyler McCreery in Las Vegas. Photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank Carl Frampton lands a left hook to the body of Tyler McCreery in Las Vegas. Photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank

JAMEL Herring looked like a giant next to Carl Frampton when the super-featherweight rivals came face-to-face last November but WBO champion Herring now has to boil himself down to 9 stone 4lb for their fight in May and that will be far from easy.

Frampton – already a world champion at super-bantamweight and featherweight – knows all about having to cut weight. He reckons that Herring, who stands around five inches taller than him, must be “killing himself” to make super-featherweight.

No contracts have been signed as yet but the 34-year-old New Yorker looks certain to travel to Belfast in May to defend his belt. He’ll have height and reach advantages but Frampton predicts that the former US Marine could be “weight-drained” when he gets in the ring at the SSE Arena.

“He is a big lump,” said Frampton.

“Everyone is going: ‘Woah, look at the size of him!’ But he must have been 12 stone when he was in the ring beside me in Las Vegas. He was big! But he has to make the weight - he’s not going to fight at the size that he was in Vegas so I’m looking at that and I know my struggles to make weight so he has to be killing himself and I can use that to my advantage.

“But he seems keen on the fight, Top Rank is keen and I’m very keen so hopefully the fight can get done. All the noises that everyone is making look like it will happen and fair play to him – he seems like he wants to come to Belfast, so that’s great.”

Herring has spoken of his eagerness to sample the atmosphere in the SSE Arena on the night. However, boxing is a business and if the rewards didn’t match the risk there’s no way he would be putting his hard-won title on the line in the Belfast bear-pit.

“The bottom line really is that he gets more money fighting me in Belfast than he does in New York,” said Frampton.

“Obviously he’s confident going into the fight and he’ll be thinking: ‘This guy is coming up (from featherweight), he’s just had operations on both hands, he’s a small guy and I’ll get paid twice what I ever got paid before so why not?’

“That’s the way he’ll be looking at it but it’s really all down to the dough. If he was offered me in New York for the same money do you think he would want to come to soak up the Belfast atmosphere? Not a chance in hell.

“It’s a business and I’m not criticising him for that because it’s the boxing game and he deserves to be paid handsomely. If he’s the champion and he’s willing to come to Belfast he should be paid for that. I completely understand that.”

There had been reports that Frampton would struggle to be fit for May. He had surgery on broken bones in both hands in December but has been told that he could be fit to punch again in four weeks. Even if he required four weeks more, he is confident he’d still have plenty of time to get in shape to face Herring in May and when he does he is convinced he has the tools to become Ireland’s first-ever three-weight world champion.

“People assume that, me being the smaller guy and him being a big guy and maybe dead at the weight, I’ll need to be on him from the very start. But I don’t know,” he said.

“I have spoken to Jamie (Moore, coach) about tactics going into the fight. I’ve got good distance-control and I’ve got very good feet and if I use them to my advantage I don’t have to just bull into him and try and apply pressure.

“He’ll probably be expecting to out-box me so when I start out-boxing him then it’ll cause a lot of confusion with him. I’ll speak to Jamie in more depth about it but I can out-box this guy and I can also dig it out and have a fight, a proper fight, if I have to.”

Frampton will have turned 33 by the time 34-year-old Herring comes to town. With a 27-2 record, the Jackal has seen more action than his opponent (21-2) and is already the veteran of seven world title fights – winning five and losing two. At this stage of his career he agrees that experience “means a lot” and intends to make it count in May.

“I used it a lot in the last fight, I probably didn’t use it the way I should have in the Josh Warrington fight but there is nothing like a defeat to give you a good kick up the backside,” he said.

“I used my experience a lot against Tyler McCreery and my fitness levels are as good as they have ever been in terms of the training I’ve been doing and the runs and the weights I’ve been lifting.

“I’m as strong and as fit as I’ve ever been and the experience obviously adds a wee bit to that and I’m going to use that to my advantage.”

Defeat would be the end for Frampton but even a history-making victory in May could be his last fight.

“I don’t know what will happen,” he says.

“At this stage of my career I’m not the youngest guy in the world but I’m feeling very good. Look at my last performance, I was hardly out of second gear and I had two broken hands.

“I know the level of opposition will obviously rise but at this stage of my career I’m just taking one fight at a time and I haven’t made any decisions about how long I’m going to continue for or what I’m going to do. It’s one fight at a time and I’ll re-evaluate after each fight.”