CARL Frampton hopes that one day John Ryder can become a world champion but doesn’t see it happening this Saturday.
Ryder is in Mexico ahead of his super-middleweight championship fight against Canelo Alvarez in Guadalajara. This will be the first time in 11 years that the 34-year-old star attraction has fought in his home country and will have the support of nearly every person inside the Estadio Akron.
Boxing News caught up with former two-weight world champion now pundit Carl Frampton to get his thoughts on the fight and asked how does Ryder pull off the major upset?
“He probably has to knock him out. But how do you knock out Canelo? He’s been in with guys like Bivol and Kovalev [at light-heavyweight] and they haven’t really put a dent in him. He didn’t look like he was ever hurt in them fights.
“Fighting in Mexico for the first time in a number of years, any close round goes to Canelo. John has to win them by an absolute landslide to win a round. It’s just going to be a really difficult task for him, but I really like John Ryder.
“If John puts in a good performance and he’s competitive in the fight and maybe wins a few rounds then there may be even bigger fights. There’s no not much bigger than the Canelo fight though but fights where John can become a world champion if Canelo maybe vacates a couple of belts or tries to move divisions again.”
“It’ll be a shame if he doesn’t get the chance to call himself a world champion,” Frampton added.
“There’s been lesser world champions than John Ryder and he probably should have got the nod against Callum Smith.”
Come Saturday Ryder will face an atmosphere like he has never experienced before. One created especially for him when he makes his walk to the ring as the man looking to spoil the homecoming. The challenger will also know that to win rounds he may have to do so comprehensively to get a score on the board. BN asked Frampton how can a fighter prepare himself for such a scenario?
“Well, I think for John anyway it’s a win-win scenario. No one’s really expecting him to win. If you asked his team they’ll all say yeah John’s gonna win but deep down they probably understand it’s going to be a difficult task. I think John just has to go in and perform his best. I genuinely think that he’ll be happy with a competitive performance.
“I don’t want to sound like I’m being derogatory or disrespectful to John. It’s just a real uphill task for John but I imagine he’s getting very well paid, which he should be. He deserves it but I would love John to be able to call himself a world champion at some point.”
With all that being said who is Frampton picking for the win?
“I think that Canelo will win on points. I think it’ll probably be a more competitive fight than the scorecards say. Canelo will win. John will win a few rounds, whether he gets them with the judges or not that’s a different story but I think Canelo will win on points.”