By Keith Idec

Carl Frampton is embarrassed, but he’s not lying.

That’s the message Frampton delivered to ESPN’s Mark Kriegel during their sit-down interview available on the cable network’s website. Northern Ireland’s Frampton realizes that the unusual story of how he suffered a broken hand Monday in Philadelphia sounds “ridiculous,” but it’s exactly what happened to him in the lobby of his hotel.

Northern Ireland’s Frampton, following a workout Monday to prepare for his fight against Mexico’s Emmanuel Dominguez on Saturday night, was sitting with members of his team, minding his own business.

Someone accidentally knocked over a concrete pillar, which came crashing down from behind him, through a curtain. The pillar landed on Frampton’s left hand, which was resting on a small table.

Frampton suffered a fractured fifth metacarpal bone and a cut to his left hand and was forced to withdraw from the fight. He assured Kriegel that he didn’t get into a fight, that the strange story of how he was injured is the absolute truth.

“Absolutely not,” Frampton said. “I can swear on my kids’ lives, a freak accident. I’m embarrassed it had happened. It just sounds ridiculous, but that’s the truth.”

Withdrawing from the fight cost the heavily favored Frampton a reported purse of roughly $900,000 and a chance to stay busy before taking a more meaningful fight later this year.

“I’ve wasted a full camp,” Frampton said. “I’ve wasted money. I’ve wasted an opportunity to show people I’m back. I’ve been away from my family for a long time and, yeah, it just feels like a waste.”

The 32-year-old Frampton (26-2, 15 KOs) was supposed to fight for the first time since England’s Josh Warrington (29-0, 6 KOs) beat him by unanimous decision in their 12-round fight for Warrington’s IBF featherweight title December 22 in Manchester, England.

Once the Frampton-Dominguez match was canceled, promoter Bob Arum moved a 10-round, junior lightweight bout between Jason Sosa (22-3-4, 15 KOs), of nearby Camden, New Jersey, and Las Vegas’ Haskell Rhodes (27-3-1, 13 KOs) into the main event of an ESPN+ stream scheduled to start at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT from Temple University’s Liacouras Center in Philadelphia.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.