Northern Ireland’s boxing superstar Carl Frampton has been training at the UFC Performance Institute ahead of his upcoming fight in Las Vegas, and “The Jackal” admitted he was blown away – both by the facilities and by one of the PI’s regular attendees.
Frampton headed out to Vegas to finalize his fight camp ahead of his bout with Tyler McCready at The Cosmopolitan on Nov. 30 and got a hook-up to train at the UFC PI via the UFC’s vice president of performance, Duncan French, who shares an association with one of Frampton’s regular gyms back in Manchester, England.
And after French gave Frampton the green light to finish off his fight camp at the PI, the former two-weight world champion was suitably impressed with the facilities he was given access to.
“The facility is amazing,” he enthused. “The people are really friendly and nice, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more, really.
“I didn’t really know what to expect coming here, being a boxer and not coming from an MMA background, wondering potentially how the other athletes will look at this boxer coming into their gym to train, but everything’s been really nice.
“You train hard. You’ve got everything you need. We bring our coaches in, we do our punching sessions, but we can also do cardio here, we can also do weights. And then after we can go and chill out in the recovery suite, in ice baths, plunge pools, saunas, jacuzzis. It’s state-of-the-art, top of the range. I’ve never been in a facility like it.”
Frampton admits he’s a fan of the UFC, but is still getting to grips with his understanding of the grappling aspect of the sport. But when it comes to throwing hands, he knows exactly what he’s looking at, and he said he was very impressed with a certain UFC heavyweight’s ability to throw a punch.
“I’ve seen big Francis (Ngannou) training in here. He’s got good hands,” he said. “He’s talking about potentially … I’m hearing some stuff about a (Tyson) Fury fight. One thing for sure is I would not like to be hit by Francis!” he said, before admitting that the hulking heavyweight left him feeling a little intimidated in the locker room.
“I was standing beside him in the changing room recently, (and) I’ve never felt less of a man in my life!” he laughed. “He’s a big unit, and a real nice guy, too.”
Frampton said the explosion in the popularity in the sport in his part of the world is down in no small part to Conor McGregor, saying the Dubliner has “transcended the sport” and “made it huge.”
“Over the last decade, I think the McGregor effect has shot it up through the roof and there’s a lot of gyms opening up all over Ireland, all over the U.K.” he said. “So I think McGregor is the man.”
And while he admits he is still building his knowledge about the sport, Frampton said he has picked up even more respect for the athletes who compete in MMA during his time at the UFC PI.
“Since I’ve been here I’ve actually been researching a little bit more into it. And although I was already a fan of the UFC coming out here, I think I’ll be going away a much bigger fan.”
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