Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez
Credit: Chris Esqueda/Matchroom Boxing
Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez is him. The pound-for-pound star walked through a determined Antonio Vargas en route to a sixth-round, one-punch KO to become a three-division champion on Saturday night in Glendale, Arizona.
I’ve seen some impressive performances from Bam, but this one gets a gold star from me for several reasons. Let’s talk boxing.
Bam stepped up in weight to a third division — which is just four pounds smaller than Naoya Inoue — and Vargas was prepared and gave Rodriguez all he could handle through the first four rounds. However, Bam again proved he was special with this deliciously dangerous right hand that ended the fight.
Vargas came out throwing hard combinations straight down the middle. He seemed to have an answer for Rodriguez's lateral movement and flanking. Through the first four rounds, it appeared as though he may have cracked Bam's code. Late in the fourth, Bam appeared to shift into a higher gear and in the sixth, he scored the clean KO win.
That surge changed the fight on the canvas. Rodriguez dropped Vargas in the fifth round, the knockdown that flipped a competitive contest, then closed the show a round later to seal his three-division milestone.
Vargas' gameplan delivered some strong moments, and it's things Bam's future opponents will likely study. However, the young champion's resilience and power stole the show.
On offense, Rodriguez snapped Vargas’s head back with clean left hands and built combinations off shifting footwork and southpaw angles. The finishing right hand was the exclamation point, the same variety that carried him past Fernando Martinez and Srisaket Sor Rungvisai at 115.
READ MORE about Naoya Inoue:
The talk after the fight is about whether Bam should chase Inoue immediately or defend his newest title at 118 pounds. Rodriguez's trainer Robert Garcia says he wants another fight in this division.
The broader reaction cast it as an elite pound-for-pound fighter doing exactly what he should against a live underdog. There was fresh talk of Rodriguez sitting second only to Naoya Inoue among the sport’s best smaller men.
I'd say it's probably not, at least not Naoya. It is more likely Rodriguez faces Naoya's brother Takuma who holds a title at 118 pounds.
Takuma Inoue currently holds the WBC bantamweight title, having beaten Tenshin Nasukawa and Kazuto Ioka, which makes a 118-pound unification with Rodriguez a cleaner near-term fight than chasing Naoya Inoue up at 122. The Monster still looms as the eventual prize, but Bam may gather more bantamweight hardware first.
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