Carl Frampton is deservedly favourite for his featherweight clash with Nonito Donaire at the SSE Arena in Belfast this weekend but best odds of 2/11 are, quite frankly, an insult to the Filipino.
In his own boxing-mad country, The Filipino Flash is ranked only behind the legendary Manny Pacquiao in terms of public adoration. He is a former world champion at four different weights – flyweight, bantamweight, super bantamweight and featherweight – and has won 38 of his 42 professional fights. That said, he is now 35 and two of his four defeats have come in his last seven bouts, though he stepped back up to the featherweight division to outpoint Mexico’s Ruben Garcia Hernandez in San Antonio, Texas last year.
That said, super bantamweight is probably his weight class nowadays and he is coming up against a natural featherwight on his own patch in front of some very vociferous supporters. Donaire has never fought outside of his country or his naturalised country, the USA, apart from a couple of shortened contests in Macau so how he’ll adapt to the difference in culture and presentation in Northern Ireland is anybody’s guess, but he’ll have his wife Rachael, a taekwondo champion, in his corner to help him feel at home – his father-in-law is also his head of security so it’s a real family affair.
Frampton is four years younger than his opponent but he, too, is a former world champion – he held the unified WBA super and IBF super-bantamweight titles between 2014 and 2016, and the WBA super featherweight crown from 2016 to 2017. His only defeat came when he lost a rematch with Leo Santa Cruz for the WBA version of the title in Las Vegas early last year. He wasn’t totally convincing when outpointing Horacio Garcia in Belfast in his only subsequent appearance but should be motivated by the challenge of Donaire.
It could be that an ongoing dispute with former mentor and promoter Barry McGuigan is still preying on the mind of The Jackal but he’ll need to wipe all thoughts of outside distractions if he’s to get the better of a wily opponent. Frampton may have stopped 14 of his 25 opponents but Donaire has only been stopped once in 16 years so the Northern Irishman will have to be prepared to go the distance if he’s to keep hopes at another crack at world titles intact.
Donaire is really way too big at 53/10 with Marathonbet but home advantage should just about give Frampton the edge so the general 8/13 for the Belfast favourite to win by Decision or Technical Decision looks a reasonable wager.
