The world is not enough for Carl Frampton

‘The Hitman’ is first on the hitlist for Ireland's new champ.

Like many of his contemporaries, Carl Frampton is a fighter bred very much by circumstance. An upbringing in 1980s Belfast commanded a battling spirit from his generation, and while for many it led down a tumultuous path of civil unrest, Frampton opted for the road less travelled and that has made all the difference.

There seems almost a fated irony, then, that he was reared in the shadow of the infamous Duncairn Gardens wall that divides the Antrim Road’s loyalist and republican strongholds.