by Cliff Rold

Jr. featherweight has given boxing some of the greatest fights of the last forty years.

Saturday did not add anything to those storied annals.

In the most anticipated fight of 2016 so far, fans had to wait into the second half of the event for the battle to break out. It wasn’t for lack of excitement. The crowd was on fire at the opening bell.

The two combatants were not. Despite all the talk, the long build, the national pride, there was little passion in the way both men went about their business until far too late into the play.

And that late waiting cost Quigg in a big way. His approach might have paid dividends in the old fifteen round days.

They don’t fight fifteen rounds anymore.

Let’s go the report card.

Grades

Pre-Fight: Speed – Quigg B; Frampton B+/Post: Same

Pre-Fight: Power – Quigg B+; Frampton B/Post: B; B

Pre-Fight: Defense – Quigg B; Frampton B/Post: B+; B

Pre-Fight: Intangibles – Quigg B+; Frampton B+/Post: C+; B

Even in a fight where he had no one to blame but himself for losing, there was a case for Quigg winning on Saturday. He came on strong in the second half. From this perspective, he appeared to win the last five rounds though the tenth and twelfth were close. So were the first and fourth. In the former, no one did anything. It was as even as a round can be. In the fourth, Frampton provided more motion but Quigg landed the only blows of consequence.

That left a minority scorecard of 115-114 for Quigg. Feel free to blast away at that. There is no feeling that the ultimate outcome was wrong. Frampton was not undeserving and the split decision reflected a fight in two parts. Frampton won the first half. Quigg won the second.  

The art of boxing, some say, is hit and don’t be hit. Quigg was very good defensively in the first half and in spots in the second half as well. But he often employed a “don’t get hit and don’t hit either approach.”

When this fight started to heat up, it was with Quigg doing what it was clear he had to do to win. He had to get to the body. In the fifth, he fired some straight rights to the ribs and a shot opened upstairs shortly thereafter. He didn’t maintain it. He didn’t consistently attack until his rally began in the eighth.

Frampton, for his part, seemed fine with Quigg’s early approach. The more natural counter puncher, he started on the front foot and then settled into a groove. He wasn’t landing much but he was being first. His speed was always going to be the equation Quigg had to solve.

Not jabbing, not punching, wasn’t getting the job done. By the time he rallied, he ultimately was too far in the hole.

That aside, it was in general a disappointing affair. Both men seemed at times less than the moment. This was a chance to grab the attention of the boxing world in the biggest way possible. They didn’t have to deliver a Barrera-Morales sort of affair. Stylistically, that probably wasn’t possible. Getting something more akin to De La Hoya-Trinidad was a drag.

If they didn’t have the same sort of mayhem to provide (and few do), they could have shown us a similar passion. There was a fire lacking here that took the wind (in spots) out of the crowd and the viewing audience. Look at the Leo Santa Cruz-Kiko Martinez fight. Martinez entered with little perceived chance to win. He showed in the first round why that was the case.

Martinez still fought like the fight meant everything to him. He didn’t come not to lose. He came to win and did everything he could to find a way.

Frampton-Quigg was yet another anticipated fight that wildly missed expectations. Both men seemed to be more in the ‘fight not to lose category’ for too much of the fight. That’s okay. Lots of fights, over the course of history, have fallen into that category. However, boxing seems stuck right now with too many fights not many are paying attention to giving fans everything they could ask for.

The fights people get the most excited about don’t feel like they’re delivering classic action often enough, at least in the US market.

Miguel Cotto-Saul Alvarez was good but not particularly memorable. Mayweather-Pacquiao is the event the sport is still trying to shake off.

We need a night where the ingredients are there, like they were here: undefeated, awaited, and with simmering hostility…and we need that night to blow us away. That didn’t happen here.

It’s not happening enough.

Report Card and Staff Picks 2016: 8-4 (Including staff picks for Huck-Afolabi IV, Santa Cruz-Martinez, Ruiz-Ceja, 

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel, the Yahoo Pound for Pound voting panel, and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com