Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez defends his WBC super flyweight title against former two-time WBC 115-lb champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai this Saturday, June 25th, in the main event on DAZN at the Tech Port Arena in San Antonio, Texas.
This is a tough fight for Bam Rodriguez because it’s a huge step up from the guys he’s been facing. If the 35-year-old Rungvisai is 100% and has anything left at this stage of his career, he could unset the 22-year-old Rodriguez on Saturday.
Rungvisai has past wins over Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez and Juan Francisco Estrada, who were better fighters than Bam Rodriguez when the Thai fighter beat them.
However, Rungvisai is 35 now, and he might be old enough for Bam Rodriguez to beat him, as long as he doesn’t get caught with anything significant.
‘Bam” Martinez (15-0, 10 KOs) captured the vacant WBC super flyweight title last February against former WBC champion Carlos Cuadras (39-5-1, 27 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision.
For boxing fans that enjoy watching technical bouts, they enjoyed watching Bam Rodriguez box his way to a 12-round decision against the 33-year-old Cuadras, who at this stage is a shell of the fighter he was six years ago.
Bam Rodriguez and his brother Joshua Franco lack power, so they tend to focus on boxing & moving to win fights.
On Saturday, you can expect Bam Rodriguez to use the hit & run approach against Rungvisai because he doesn’t possess the power to stay in the pocket against the Thai fighter without getting beaten up.
Bam Rodriguez must look good in this fight because the last thing he needs is to be seen running from Rungvisai for 12 rounds because he’ll be booed out of the arena.
Large portions of Rodriguez’s last fight against Cuadras were virtually unwatchable because of Bam’s movement in the fight. Although Cuadras lost the battle by a decision, he was the more entertaining to watch of the two fighters.
That’s not a knock on the American Rodriguez, but he lacks the excitement even a washed Mexican fighter Cuadras brought to the ring in that match.
Rodriguez got the win, but it was dull and worse than some of the fighters that get dumped on routinely for being boring to watch, like Devin Haney at lightweight.
In the co-feature bout, WBC flyweight champion Julio Cesar Martinez defends against McWilliams Arroyo in a rematch of their fight last November.
Martinez (18-2, 14 KOs) and Arroyo (21-4, 16 KOs) fought to a third-round no contest last November in a fight that was halted due to McWilliams suffering an injury from a clash of heads.
Since that fight, ‘Rey’ Martinez was badly beaten by Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez by a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision last March in San Diego. Chocolatito took Martinez to school, dominating him in an easy victory.
In two other interesting fights on the card, IBF/WBA super bantamweight champion Murodjon Akhmadaliev will be defending against #1 WBA Ronny Rios
WBC/IBF/WBO/WBA Women’s Welterweight champion Jessica McCaskill defends against Alma Ibarra.
