Carl Frampton made a winning return to the ring with a far from convincing non-title fight victory over Mexican Horacio Garcia at the SSE Arena in Belfast.
The former WBA world featherweight title holder was defeated by Leo Santa Cruz in January and has since split from trainer Shane McGuigan to work with Jamie Moore.
The 30-year-old Belfast fighter was looking for a way back into world title contention and despite looking ring rusty took a unanimous points decision against Garcia and will now hope for a world title fight at Windsor Park in 2018.
Fighting at an agreed weight of 9st 1lb over 10 rounds, Frampton started well and dominated the early rounds before his opponent came back into the contest.
After getting caught on the ropes a couple of times, Frampton appeared to slip in the seventh round but the referee claimed a punch had been landed and gave him a standing count.
Garcia was setting the pace towards the end of the fight and as they began to trade blows a tiring Frampton still did enough to win the fight on all three of the judges’ cards.
