Staying Relevant: Bam Rodriguez back on the job

By Norm Frauenheim

Staying busy and staying relevant are a couple of fundamentals, both of which will be at the top of Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez agenda on a jammed July 19 when he re-acquaints himself with his Texas fans in a bid to further define himself as boxing’s only Super Fly in a 115-pound unification bout.

Rodriguez won’t exactly have the stage to himself. In a forever balkanized game further fractured by feast-or-famine scheduling, Rodriguez’ will be scrambling for attention on a day when heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk will defend his undisputed title in a rematch against Daniel Dubious at London’s Wembley Stadium and 46-year-old legend Manny Pacquiao will attempt another comeback in his first bout in four years against welterweight champion Mario Barrios in Vegas. 

The mid-summer triple-header is happening amid uncertainty surrounding the whereabouts of the much-hyped Terence Crawford-Canelo Alvarez spectacle,  which at last report is penciled in — keep your eraser at the ready — for September 13 instead of Sept. 12.

As of midday Friday, there was still no announcement of a new location, which originally had been the Raiders home field at Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium. The silence is deafening. Also bewildering, unfair to fans and fighters. Then again, it’s also business as usual, which is to say it’s still a mess.

The good news is that none of it seems to bother the business-like Rodriguez, whose skillset includes just about everything other than distractions bought on by feuding promoters or social media’s trash-talk. 

Simply put: Bam does his job. He did it in a devastating response to non-stop taunts from Sunny Edwards, whom he put on the canvas in a defeated heap in a Phoenix suburb in December 2023. He did it again, this time in response to doubts about his youth and experience against accomplished Juan Francisco Estrada, whom he stopped with a tactical masterpiece last June, also in Phoenix. 

The victory over Estrada launched him into another category. It put him into the middle of the pound-for-pound debate, outside of the Naoya Inoue-Usyk-Crawford perch, yet still within striking distance. 

Staying there — as well as busy — is the task on July 19 when Rodriguez attempts to add the Word Boxing Organization’s 115-pound version of the title to his collection in Frisco TX, about 300 miles up I-35 from his home in San Antonio. 

Rodriguez is fighting somebody named Phumelela Cafu, a South African who will be fighting for the first time in the United States. 

Other than a stunning upset — a debatable split-decision over Kosei Tanaka last October in Japan for the WBO belt, the 30-year-old Cafu (11-0-3, 8 KOs) is unknown. That’s what makes him dangerous. That’s also why many will be watching Usyk-Dubois and Pacquiao-Barrios instead. But that’s also business, something Rodriguez (21-0,14 KOs) has also shown he understands.

Rodriguez is coming off a year when much of his momentum in the wake of his triumph over Estrada has stalled. It’s not his fault. But that, too, is business.

It started when Estrada decided not to enforce a rematch clause. He said he was moving up in weight. Truth is, it was more like moving away. Estrada simply didn’t want to fight Rodriguez again. 

It sent a message, first to Ramon Gonzalez, the best known name in the lightest divisions. Rodriguez’ management couldn’t talk Gonzalez into a fight.

Then, there’s Fernando Daniel Martinez, the World Boxing Association’s 115-pound champion. After Martinez took the WBA title from Kazuko Ioka with a unanimous decision in Japan a week after Bam stopped Estrada, there were reports that there were talks of a unification fight with the Argentine. 

Then, however, Estrada announced he didn’t want the rematch and Gonzalez declined to fight Rodriguez. Instead of Rodriguez, Martinez opted for a rematch with Ioka, which he won by another unanimous decision, again in Japan May 11.

There were other circumstances, still it’s beginning to look as if Rodriguez is a contender for Most Avoided, a title nobody wants. Ask Phoenix-born light heavyweight champion David Benavidez, who futilely chased Canelo Alvarez for years and now is hoping for a real shot at some validation of his World Boxing Council belt in a first defense against the Dmitrii Bivol-Artur Bivol 3 winner.

For Rodriguez, Martinez continues to loom as a possibility. But Benavidez, who was given the WBC belt when Bivol acceded to promotional demands and agreed to a third Beterbiev fight, looms as an example of what he and every other avoided fighter must do no matter what happens:

The job.

Rodriguez, who easily scored a stoppage of Pedro Guevara in support of a Jaron Ennis-featured card in Philadelphia in November, fights on, this time in search of a belt that might give him some leverage with promoters, networks and — above all — fans.

A year ago, there was talk of Rodriguez against Inoue, who is coming off a dramatic stoppage of another San Antonio fighter, Ramon Cardenas in Vegas May 4. Then, Bam-versus-The Monster was a Dream Fight. Still is, but the talk has subsided. 

Inoue, undisputed at junior-featherweight and facing a risky date against Murodjon Akhmadaliev Sept. 14 in Japan, is still talking about a move to featherweight, despite suffering an early knockdown against Cardenas at junior-feather. Inoue’s decision figures to be made by how he does against the dangerous Akhmadaliev.

Even then, however, an all-Japanese fight awaits, Inoue against bantamweight champion Junto Nakatani, who has been training in Los Angeles for a 118-pound unification bout against Ryosuke Nishida June 8 in Tokyo. 

The good news for Rodriguez is that Nakatani continues to say he wants to fight Bam. Nakatani trainer Rudy Hernandez set the stage for one by calling out Bam this week during a media workout at LA Gym.

“Junto beats Bam, 100 percent, within six to eight rounds,’’ Hernandez told The Ring. “We’ll knock him out. I am confident about it, but that’s my opinion. It’s not personal.

“It’s business.’’

Bam’s business, too.