Undefeated American prospect, Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, has been boosted on BoxRec’s Flyweight rankings to become the best Flyweight in the world, surpassing IBF Flyweight champion Sunny Edwards who had previously been considered the #1 Flyweight. This follows after Jesse Rodriguez’ victory over Cristian Gonzalez Hernandez for the vacant WBO Flyweight title. As a result, Bam Rodriguez further had something to celebrate with his first-ever world title win. Their bout was held at the Boeing Center at Tech Port in San Antonio, Texas on April 8th.
Following the previous WBO champion’s ― Junto Nakatani (24-0, 18 KO’s) ― move up to Super Flyweight, the WBO belt had been left vacant and up for grabs. On April 8th, Jesse Rodriguez (18-0, 11 KO’s) and Cristian Gonzalez Hernandez (15-2, 5 KO’s) fought for the vacant Flyweight title, with the former grabbing a crucial and dominating unanimous decision win over Hernandez.
The American showed himself to be a level above Cristian Hernandez in what was a first world title bout for Hernandez and the second for Rodriguez. Jesse Rodriguez didn’t shy away from fighting in the pocket throughout the rounds, but also did not hesitate to fight at range when needed, making for a versatile and effective performance that saw Bam Rodriguez take most the rounds though Cristian Gonzalez remained competitive and far from an easy touch throughout the match.
With Jesse Rodriguez forcing Cristian Hernandez on the backfoot for most of the fight, he proved to be even more devastating with his jabs and body shots which forced the Mexican contender to often switch from orthodox to southpaw (or vice-versa) as he sought to seek some sort of edge against Rodriguez. There was nothing much that Cristian Hernandez could offer in return to Jesse Rodriguez’ clear intent to hurt him, but to the Mexican fighter’s credit he did not truly sag off and showed flashes of his talent through his own work ethic which was unfortunately overshadowed by Rodriguez’.
After twelve full rounds, Jesse Rodriguez was declared the winner by unanimous decision with the judges scoring the fight widely in his favor with cards of 117-111, 116-112 and 118-110. Subsequently, Jesse Rodriguez also became a world champion for the second time of his career following this victory ― after first becoming a world champion in 2022 at Super Flyweight.
The post-match interview also revealed that Jesse Rodriguez had his jaw broken during the fight, making for an even more impressive victory over a respectable contender in Cristian Gonzalez Hernandez.
The newly-crowned American champion, who seems to want to test his talents at 112 lbs following a successful and active year at 115 lbs ― where he defended his titles two times after becoming a world champion, has now also announced his desire to fight the best in his weight class, starting with the (according to BoxRec) second-best Flyweight in the world and fellow Matchroom fighter, Sunny Edwards (19-0, 4 KO’s).
“Sunny Edwards, he’s the only option. I see he’s been talking so let’s make it happen.” Jesse Rodriguez responded when asked on which (of the three) Flyweight world champions he would rather face.
Though Rodriguez’ promoter, Eddie Hearn, heavily entertained the idea of a unification fight between Sunny Edwards and Jesse Rodriguez, he was quick to lay down the reality of Jesse Rodriguez’ injury which would prevent that unification fight from happening sooner rather than later.
“(The fight) is very easy to make but it’s just on timing now. Obviously with that injury, if that jaw is broken, it’s probably going to keep him out until the backend of this year.” Hearn said.
“Sunny needs to fight, s maybe we look at Martinez, Dalakian or even a voluntary defense in the meantime but that’s the fight now. Unification fights, one champion in the division.“
Though Jesse Rodriguez will likely not feature until the end of the year like Hearn had expressed, Sunny Edwards can potentially unify with either WBA champion Artem Dalakian (22-0, 15 KO’s) or WBC champion Julio Cesar Martinez (19-2, 14 KO’s).
The rest of the fight card featured other exciting bouts, particularly the Super Bantamweight match-up that saw the only other unified champion in the division next to Stephen Fulton (21-0, 8 KO’s), Murodjon Akhmadaliev (11-1, 8 KO’s), suffer an upset split-decision loss to Marlon Tapales (37-3, 19 KO’s) who has become the new WBA and IBF Super Bantamweight world champion after winning the titles from Akhmadaliev.
24-year old American prospect Raymond Ford (14-0-1, 7 KO’s) also showed a good account of himself against a fellow Featherweight contender in former Super Bantamweight world champion ― and fellow American ― Jessie Magdaleno who was knocked down twice during the fight. It was a showcase victory for Ford who soundly defeated Magadeleno by unanimous decision in his first twelve-round bout.
