It’s OK to use your elbows these days. In fact, it’s almost mandatory. It’s called social distancing. The elbow, prohibited in the ring, is the way to say hello on the street. Coronavirus is changing the way people interact and boxers train.
At least, it has for Carl Frampton.
Boxing is already lonely enough, but it’s become even more so for Frampton.
He’s at home in Belfast, training by himself for a fight that has been announced yet has not been scheduled. He and Jamel Herring agreed, presumably sealing the deal with an elbow bump instead of a handshake, on a junior lightweight title fight. Frampton hopes for an opening bell in June but knows that’s unlikely.
“I very much doubt the Herring fight will happen in June, but I am training now as if it is, until I hear otherwise,” Frampton told BBC Sport.
Fights are still on the schedule in May and into June. But the cancellations are like falling dominoes. They are expected to continue until the pandemic subsides. Nobody knows when that will happen. If and when it does, there will be a scramble to re-schedule. It’s mess now. It’ll be a mess for a while.
Meanwhile, Frampton can only maintain his conditioning and social distancing. His trainer, Jamie Moore, is in Manchester, England.
“There are a lot more important things to be worrying about,” the former junior featherweight and featherweight champion said. “It wouldn’t be fair on either fighter to prepare for a world title fight in circumstances like this.
“… It’s very difficult to work on tactics and a game plan without a trainer.”
Meanwhile, Frampton is urging that promoters, ruling bodies and regulatory agencies to put together some kind of plan on what to do during the virus threat. And after it.
“The British Boxing Board of Control needs to come together with the promoters and devise some sort of plan for self-employed boxers at this difficult time,” Frampton said. “There is more chance and more likelihood of the bigger fights taking place behind closed doors rather than smaller fights because TV covers a lot of money.
“But at this time everyone is in limbo and doesn’t know what is going on.”