Carl Frampton relishes fight week in Belfast, but it has never quite felt like this. Tomorrow night, in a specially built arena in the city’s dockside, Frampton will aim to become a world champion and the whole of Northern Ireland will be backing him.
Barry McGuigan, his promoter, manager and mentor, was a poster boy for sanity during the Troubles in the Eighties; Frampton is a face of the new Northern Ireland.
Some 16,000 fans will be packed into the arena in the Titanic Quarter when Frampton, trained by McGuigan’s son, Shane, challenges Kiko Martínez for the IBF super-bantamweight title, making it the biggest bout in history in the north and the third largest in all of Ireland in 70 years.
“I love fight week in Belfast,” Frampton said. “I move into the Europa, which is right in the middle. We walk around the town and everyone is very talkative, they want to shake my hand and wish me luck.
“Belfast is steeped in boxing history. In north and west Belfast, around every corner is a different boxing club. The fans are very knowledgeable, especially the older generation, but there are a lot of casual fans coming into it now. They enjoy getting behind one of their own.”
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A Protestant from North Belfast, married to Christine, a Catholic from west Belfast, Frampton is loved as much in the Falls Road as the Shankhill Road. Boxing has always crossed the sectarian divide.
At amateur level, the sport is organised on an all-Ireland basis, so success in the Ulster Championships often meant a call-up for the Ireland squad, based in Dublin, where he was often the only Protestant in the team. “It was never a problem,” Frampton, 27, said. “It was never such a big deal in the south as it was in the north. I had a lot of friends in the Ireland team and I still do.”
When competing at the European Schoolboy Championships in Rome, the team visited the Vatican. “They let me in,” he said. “That was the big joke in the team. There was me and seven others, all called Joyce, they were all cousins. They were taking the p*** and throwing holy water on me. It was just a joke, no one really cared. I’ve been in boxing 20 years and the only time I saw any sectarian abuse was about three years ago. It was a very split bill, some Catholics against Protestants, and there was quite a hostile atmosphere.
“I was with my missus at ringside and a few guys with a few drinks in them said a few things they shouldn’t to me. I walked over to them and said ‘what’s the problem?’ — maybe not as nice as that. I picked one out who was doing most of the slobbering and he shut up.
“I turned my back and was getting all the w***** signs. I said to Christine, ‘Before it gets out of hand, let’s go.’ That’s one time in 20 years. It doesn’t normally happen.”
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It is nearly 30 years since McGuigan boxed with a white dove of peace on his shorts. Belfast has changed, nowhere more so than the Titanic Quarter, which was still a busy shipyard.
McGuigan was from Clones, yards south of the border in the three counties of Ulster that are not in the north. He took out British citizenship so that he could box for the British title, a brave move at the time, and there was an army checkpoint outside the gym where he trained in central Belfast, meaning searches on a daily basis.
“It was something you became accustomed to,” he said. “You would often hear bombs in the distance, squealing police cars and ambulances. It was a sad time and that’s why I decided I wasn’t going to wear colours. I had supporters clubs from all over the north, both sides of the community, and they travelled to America, to England, to Dublin to support me.”
Tourists now stand in front of murals that marked territory for paramilitary groups. The name-checks that McGuigan lists for helping to transform the dockside into a boxing venue includes senior politicians on both sides of the sectarian divide.
McGuigan has believed in Frampton since he first saw him as an amateur and fully expects him to beat Martínez, a Spaniard. then unify the world title.
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“He was dynamic, very hardpunching,” McGuigan said of his first memories of Frampton. “He had to spar bigger guys because he was such a severe puncher. He fights at close range, long range, has timing, balance and he’s a nice fella and a smart kid. He has the full shebang, it’s just about getting the opportunity.”
Frampton is in the fortunate position of challenging a champion he has already beaten, 19 months ago when the European title was on the line. Martínez then won the IBF title in the United States and has defended it in Spain and Japan. Those lucky enough to have a ticket will see a message on it, “No football tops, no flags.”
“We don’t want the fighters on the card to have red, white and blue, or green, white and gold, because you are just going to alienate one section of the community,” Frampton said. “My shorts are white and gold, same colours they were last time I knocked him out.
“People are saying it’s the biggest fight in the history of Northern Ireland. I don’t know that, but it is certainly my biggest fight. Martínez is getting paid a lot of money and rightly so, because he is coming into my backyard, which doesn’t happen very often. They are building this stadium just for me, it’s very humbling.”
Champions from the north
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Rinty Monaghan, Belfast
World flyweight champion,
1947-1950
Johnny Caldwell, Belfast
World bantamweight champion,
1961-1962
Dave McAuley,
Larne IBF flyweight champion,
1989-1992
Eamonn Loughran, Ballymena
WBO welterweight champion,
1993-1996
Wayne McCullough, Belfast
WBC bantamweight champion,
1995-1996
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