A fight that is often forgotten considering Frampton would win his first world title against Martinez; his challenge for the EBU title would be the toughest test of the Belfast man's young career - and a night when his star would rise.

Several years before winning world titles, unifying divisions, selling out nights in Las Vegas and winning Ring Magazine’s fighter of the year award; a young Carl Frampton, like all prospects, reached the stage of his career where he had to answer questions and prove that his was a talent that justified the buzz surrounding his ascent in the professional ranks.

On the 9th of February 2013 he took on hard-hitting Kiko Martinez in the Odyssey Arena, Belfast for the EBU and IBF inter-continental super-bantamweight titles. Frampton was 15-0 heading into this contest while Kiko, only one year older, had twice as many fights and boasted a record of 27-3. Nowadays, Kiko is well known to Irish boxing fans as one of the most popular away fighters seen in the opposite corner down through the years, but in 2013 he was a hard-hitting danger man who had previously knocked out Bernard Dunne and posed a serious threat to the young hopeful from Tiger’s Bay.