In the early hours of Sunday morning (Irish time), Carl Frampton will step into the ring in Las Vegas, aiming to further enhance his status as the greatest Irish professional boxer in a generation, writes Eoin Ryan.
Andy Lee and Bernard Dunne may both have won world titles since the turn of the millennium but only Frampton has done so at two different weights - super bantamweight (122 lbs) and featherweight (126 lbs) - matching the feat of Steve Collins in the 1990s.
'The Jackal' took the WBA's ‘Super’ belt in the latter category from Leo Santa Cruz with a stunning majority-decision victory last July and it's the Mexican who he'll face again this weekend.
Underdog Frampton handed three-weight champion Santa Cruz his first ever professional defeat in in New York and his opponent will be aiming to return the favour at the MGM Grand.
This time the Belfast man (23-0-0, 14 KOs) is the slight favourite but it's not a tag that's weighing heavily on his mind.
In November, he told RTÉ that he expected to improve on the performance that earned him a 116-112, 117-111, 114-114 decision from the judges that night.
"No matter who I fight, I always get better the second time. I feel like I have a good boxing brain and can adapt and understand their style," he said.
"The only person I've fought twice as a professional is Kiko Martinez and I was much more comfortable the second fight."
Unusually, for a sport that often relies on feigned animosity to promote its contests, there seems to be genuine respect between the two men, both of whom have called each other a "great fighter".
The contrast in styles of the rapid-fire and rangy Santa Cruz, who threw over 1,000 punches in New York and the stockier, more accurate Frampton, made for an enthralling scrap the first time around and the rematch is a mouth-watering prospect.
A native of Tigers Bay, a loyalist neighbourhood of north Belfast, Frampton has followed the approach of his mentor and manager Barry McGuigan in rising above the sectarian divisions that can infect sport.
Fighting with the Midland Boxing Club, he won a European silver medal for Ireland as a schoolboy before becoming Irish senior flyweight champion at just 18 in 2005.
Frampton followed that up with an EU silver at featherweight and turned pro after beating Rio Olympian David Oliver Joyce to the Irish featherweight crown in 2009.
A series of comfortable victories at super-bantamweight earned Frampton the Commonwealth and IBF Intercontinental titles on the way to stopping Martinez in their first encounter in 2013 – when Barry McGuigan’s son Shane took over as trainer.
That secured the European belt, and when the Spaniard went on to win the IBF crown, they met again in Belfast in 2014 – this time Frampton winning by unanimous decision and becoming a world champion at the age of 27.
Successful defences against American Chris Avalos and Alejandro Gonzalez Jr followed, though the latter, who was sadly murdered at just 23 in his native Mexico last December, had the Northern Irishman worried after two early knockdowns.
A long-awaited grudge match with the previously unbeaten Scott Quigg in February last year saw Frampton add the WBA belt to his collection – the split-decision victory in the Englishman’s home town of Manchester was the only time a judge has voted against Frampton in his career to date.
The Belfast man immediately moved up to featherweight, a class he believes suits him much more, and upset the odds to dethrone Santa Cruz in July.
That win, coupled with his triumph over Quigg, earned him the acclaim of the boxing world and Fighter of the Year awards from both The Ring magazine and US Sports network ESPN.
In 1985, Barry McGuigan ended the seven-year reign of Panamanian champion Eusebio Pedroza to claim the WBA belt that his protégé now holds. He lost it in his third defence to another Cruz - Steve.
In the aftermath of Frampton's triumph last summer, a jubilant McGuigan predicted that the 29-year-old “will go on to be the greatest Irish fighter there's ever been”.
Victory in Sunday’s rematch would help to make that a serious prospect.
Follow Carl Frampton v Leo Santa Cruz with our live blog on RTÉ.ie from 2am on Sunday January 29
