Carl Frampton's Fighting Style Will Not Be Effective Vs Leo Santa Cruz

Even though many boxing fans and experts expect a close fight between Carl Frampton and Leo Santa Cruz, that shouldn't be the case. This is because Carl Frampton has a fighting style where he likes to repeatedly faint with the left jab in order to get his opponents to move closer to the ropes. Which allows him to severely restrict the movement of his opponents since they haven't developed a habit of constantly using their lateral movement and/or learned how to cut angles to get off the ropes. As a result, his opponents usually stand in place for twenty to thirty seconds at a time and covering up or ducking down in an effort to avoid getting hit by the punches. This gives him the opportunity to throw the straight right without the fear of the opponent moving back and potentially landing a counter. If the opponent ducks down in an effort to avoid the straight right he will throw a left hook to the body to make them realize that ducking down does not get you out of the danger zone thus it forces the opponent to choose the lesser of two evils.

(examples of Carl Frampton's fighting style)

However, this type of fighting style will not work against Leo Santa Cruz since he is the type of fighting who is use to fighting within close quarters. For instance, against Abner Mores Leo used his left jab as a decoy to get Mores to cover up and stand in one place as he moving forward to get in the pocket. Once he achieves that he starts to throw hooks to the body to begin the process of wearing down Mores. Due to his preference of fighting within close quarters, there are going to be many rounds where Leo will allow Frampton to take control of the ring because he knows that Frampton likes to corner his opponents on the ropes which means the fight will take place within close quarters. While Frampton is going to be thinking this is the best possible outcome it is actually the worst because he is not used to his opponents fighting back from the ropes. This is because every time he throws a straight right he will leave his body wide open for counter hooks to the body which will zap him of some energy that he will need in the later rounds thus Leo will pull away during the second half of the fight. 

(examples of Leo Santa Cruz fighting within close quarters)