Carl Frampton

Carl Frampton (born 21 February 1987) is a Northern Irish former professional boxer who competed from 2009 to 2021.

As an amateur, Frampton fought out of the Midland Boxing Club in Tiger's Bay and won the Irish senior flyweight title in 2005 and added the Irish featherweight title in 2009, beating David Oliver Joyce in the final.

He also claimed a silver medal at the 2007 European Union Amateur Boxing Championships in Dublin, losing to France's Khedafi Djelkhir in the final.

Frampton is one of Ireland's most successful amateur boxers of recent years, winning 114 of his fights and losing only 11 times.

Later commenting on his decision to box for the Irish team, Frampton, who grew up in a Unionist area of Belfast, said "I get asked all the time, 'would you have liked to have boxed for Great Britain?' And the answer is 'no'. I was looked after by Irish boxing from pretty much 11 years old and was very proud to box for Ireland."

He added, "it's very humbling to know that so many people are supporting me from all over Ireland and mainland UK."

Frampton turned professional after his victory in the 2009 Irish featherweight finals.

In June 2009, fought his first professional fight at the Olympia, Liverpool, in England and beat Sandor Szinavel with a second-round knock-out on a card that included Grzegorz Proksa and Ajose Olusegan.

In January 2010, he was named Ireland's Prospect of the Year at the Irish National Boxing Awards.

In September 2010 he recorded an "electrifying" win over the Ukrainian Yuri Voronin in front of an Ulster Hall crowd which included Daniel Day-Lewis.

The win led the Belfast Telegraph to liken him to a "reincarnation" of Barry McGuigan.

In December 2010, Frampton won his first professional title, the BBBofC Celtic super-bantamweight title, with a second-round TKO win over Scottish boxer Gavin Reid in the Ulster Hall.

Following his victory, Frampton described the super-bantamweight division as being "super-hot" and named Scott Quigg and Rendall Munroe as potential opponents.

At regional level, he held the European and Commonwealth super-bantamweight titles between 2011 and 2014.

He then went on to get a fourth-round TKO win over Venezuelan Oscar Chacin, and later fought his first defence of his BBBofC Celtic title against Welshman Robbie Turley in June 2011, winning by a unanimous decision after ten rounds.

Carl fought Australian Mark Quon as a replacement for Kiko Martinez on 10 September for the Commonwealth super-bantamweight title at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast winning by a fourth-round TKO stoppage.

On 28 January 2012, he successfully defended his Commonwealth title against Kris Hughes in the York Hall, with the fight having to be stopped in the seventh round.

According to the BBC, Frampton controlled the contest from the start and was never threatened by his opponent.

On 17 March 2012, Frampton once again defended his title against Ghana's Prosper Ankrah and won by a second-round TKO stoppage.

After his victory Frampton challenged the British champion Scott Quigg saying that "I don't know if he wants it but, if he does, he should tell his promoter".

Frampton then beat fellow unbeaten contender Raúl Hirales, Jr. (previously 16–0, 8 KO's) of Mexico by a unanimous decision and won the vacant IBF Inter-continental super-bantamweight title on the undercard of Carl Froch vs. Lucian Bute in Nottingham, UK.

The fight took place on 26 May 2012.

On 22 September 2012, Frampton took on former two-time world champion Steve Molitor.

The fight took place in the Odyssey Arena in Belfast on a card that included Martin Lindsay and Paul McCloskey.

Frampton scored an impressive sixth-round TKO and had the former champion on the canvas three times during the bout.

After the fight, Frampton announced that he was willing to "fight anyone" and that he was "ready for a world title fight".

On 9 February 2013, Carl Frampton faced hard-punching Spaniard Kiko Martinez in front of 8,000 of his home fans in the Odyssey Arena in Belfast.

Martínez, the European champion, had previously knocked out Bernard Dunne in 86 seconds to win the title and had never been knocked down.

Frampton won by TKO in Round 9, winning the European super-bantamweight title and retaining the IBF Inter-Continental super-bantamweight title.

After the fight Frampton said "I just want the people of Belfast to be proud of me", and described his beaten opponent as "hard as nails".

On 19 October 2013, Frampton defended his EBU and IBF Inter-Continental titles in an IBF title eliminator against IBF fourth-ranked Jeremy Parodi.

The fight took place in front of a Maximum Capacity 9,000 fans at the Odyssey Arena, Belfast.

He held world championships in two weight classes, including the WBA (Unified) and IBF super-bantamweight titles between 2014 and 2016, and the WBA (Super) featherweight title from 2016 to 2017.

In August 2014, Martinez won the IBF title with a sixth-round stoppage of the previously unbeaten Colombian Jonatan Romero.

By winning the featherweight world title in 2016, Frampton became the first boxer from Northern Ireland to have held world titles in two weight classes.

This earned him Fighter of the Year awards from The Ring magazine, the Boxing Writers Association of America and ESPN.

He also held the WBO interim featherweight title in 2018.

In December 2019, Frampton was ranked as the world's fourth-best active super-featherweight by BoxRec and fifth-best active featherweight by The Ring.

He retired after losing in his WBO junior-lightweight title fight against Jamel Herring.

Amateur boxing in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is governed by the Irish Amateur Boxing Association.