BRUCE Carrington delivered an emphatic third-round KO over Jose Enrique Vivas last night in Las Vegas on the undercard of Mikaela Mayer’s rematch win over Sandy Ryan. ‘Shu Shu’ wasted little time calling out the current featherweight world champions, now that his cross-board rankings are touching the top five.
ESPN interviewer Mark Kriegel equated that to the sanctioning bodies agreeing on Carrington being the best fighter without a title. But what about the fighters currently holding those titles?
“I want all of the top champions you already know. But I really do want to be specific when I call these people out,” barked the winner.
“Nick Ball? Yeah, I want that. WBC? Stephen Fulton? Yeah, I want that. Let’s get this working, bro. I want to fight all y’all. Let’s get it. Stop running. Stop playing. Let’s get this working.”
Fulton holds the WBC title he took from Brandon Figueroa. Nick Ball holds the WBA, Angelo Leo the IBF, and Rafael Espinoza defends the WBO shortly. One interesting dynamic about featherweight is the contrasting sizes and skill sets of all the champions and some of the contenders. They make for some interesting stylistic matchups. Espinoza, aka “the tall guy,” is under a Top Rank contract like Carrington.
“Oh, you know I’ll chop that tree down, too. You know I’ve been here. I’ve been saying his name since last year. Stop playing,” continued Carrington.
“You got to ask him the question if he wants to fight me. That’s the real question. I’ve been saying I’ve been wanting to fight everybody. Let’s get this work. I’m not ducking nobody. Y’all call yourselves champions? Come fight the best. See me!”
While a grinning Carrington couldn’t guarantee his next outing would go any longer, he seems to have learned the hardcore lessons offered by Ugandan tough guy Sulaiman Segawa two fights ago. Bruce is now 15-0 (9 KOs) while Vivas dropped to 23-4 (12 KOs), getting stopped for the first time in his career. He was disappointed, but Raul Caiz Jr’s stoppage was correct.
“I would definitely want to give a big congratulations to Vivas as well. He’s a champion,” commended Carrington. That was pretty much all he offered him across the contest.
“Every fight’s not going to be a knockout and everything like that, but I’m always performing and do what I have to do. I just saw him opening up and that’s what I wanted him to do.
“It was a part of the game plan for him to just feel comfortable and to open up. And then I was going to just get my shots on the inside and to get him up out of there.”
