The Jackal returning to his den

CARL FRAMPTON fighting in Belfast is a great occasion in British sport. Tickets for his world title eliminator next month against Andres Gutierrez at ‘The Jackal’s Den’, also known as the SSE Odyssey Arena, went in hours. We considered staging the fight at Windsor Park. Hopefully we can do that in the future, but the pieces of the jigsaw just didn’t fall into place this time. Gutierrez is a stiff test, losing only once in 37 fights, and how he was judged the loser against Cristian Mijares for the WBC’S silver featherweight crown I will never know. As the 25 knockouts on his record show, Gutierrez is a serious danger to Carl (above, in action against Scott Quigg). Anything less than 100 per cent focus and he will lose. Gutierrez is a marauding, come forward, attacking fighter who hits hard. He is 23, has never been stopped and put down only once. As we know, Carl has been over twice in his career, both times against Alejandro Gonzalez in the first round in El Paso. We were speaking with Gutierrez (left) before the press conference at the Europa Hotel. We told him that was Carl’s worst performance. He corrected us. “No,” he said. “That will be on July 29th.” You can see he wants it. He is a strong boy and says he will knock out Carl, which is great. These are the guys that get Carl fired up. Gutierrez loves to fight and Carl likes nothing better. He knows he has to put on a show at a venue where in the past he has produced his best stuff. He will be shooting for a world title again at the end of the year. He has to show the world he has the hunger and the desire to win a big scrap again. There were easier fights, but that is no good to Carl now. He needs to test himself and prove he is back on point. We are in for a treat in the early hours tomorrow when Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev go again in Las Vegas. I thought Kovalev won the first fight, albeit narrowly, and believe he will get the job done in the return. Ward is not getting any better. He was dropped in the last fight and though he showed heart and ability to adjust, he is the wrong side of 30 and after a series of injuries I can’t see him holding off ‘The Krusher’ a second time.