By Norm Frauenheim
GLENDALE, Ariz. – Sunny Edwards owned the news conferences.
Jesse Rodriguez owned the ring.
Rodriguez turned that ring into his own bully pulpit, punishing Edwards and then dropping him with a left hand that landed like his nickname, Bam, in the final moments of the ninth round Saturday night at Desert Diamond Arena.
In the final second of the ninth, Rodriguez got the last word after a long week full of unfounded accusations. He called Rodriguez a drug cheat. He called him weird.
In the end, he could only call him champ. Edwards, whose corner threw in the towel at 2:59 of the ninth, lost for the first time and lost his International Boxing Federation flyweight title.
Rodriguez (19-0, 15 KOs) added the belt to his collection, including the World Boxing Organization’s version of the 112-pound crown.
At the moment that Edwards’ corner tossed in the towel, Rodriguez fell to his knees and onto his chest. He looked relieved.
Maybe, that’s because he won’t have to listen anymore to Edwards (20-1, 4 KOs), a little guy with heavyweight Tyson Fury’s big mouth.
The two, Sunny and Bam, embraced in the middle of the ring after it was all over. Sunny promised he’d be back. Bam promised that he was moving back up the scale, in pursuit of the super-fly title he vacated.
It was no coincidence that super-fly (115 pounds) champ Juan Francisco Estrada was in the crowd. It was also no coincidence that Hall of Fame junior flyweight Michel Carbajal was there, too.
Rodriguez showed why he is perhaps the best American in boxing’s lightest weights since Carbajal’s era through the 1990s.
Rodriguez kept his poise early and then slowly began to control the pace and the ring.
A key round was the fifth. That’s when Rodriguez grabbed the momentum At the end of the round, he rocked Edwards onto his heels with a big overhand punch. It was asign of things to come.
In the sixth, Bam opened up a cut under Sunny’s left eye. He drove him into the ropes. Then, he raised both hands over his head, as if to mock Sunny.
The mocking continued. Seconds later, the fighters drifted back toward the center the ring. That’s when Bam stuck his tongue out at Edwards. Edwards, suddenly no longer so Sunny, seemed to respond in anger. He went straight at Rodriguez, a bullish assault from a fighter known for working off his back foot.
It was as if he had forgotten who he was and how he fought.Rodriguez made him forget, mostly because the San Antonio fighter always remembered how to apply the fundamentals that are transforming him into a pound-for-pound contender.
Murodjon Akhmadaliev restores confidence with solid TKO
Murodjon Akhmadaliev knocked out the doubt.
Knocked out Kevin Gonzalez too.
Akhmadaliev came off an emotionally crushing loss, scoring an eighth-round stoppage in a junior-featherweight fight that restored his confidence and, he hopes, puts him back in line for a shot at pound-for-pound contender Naoya Inoue.
Akhmadaliev (12-1, 9 KOs)lost a debatable split decision to Marlon Tapales in April. Tapales used that victory to secure a date against Inoue on Dec. 26 in Japan. For weeks, Akhmadaliev wondered: It could have been me.
Saturday night, he quit agonizing and resumed fighting, knocking down the rugged Gonzalez (20-1-1, 13 KOs) four times — twice in the sixth round and twice in the eight — for a solid TKO victory at 2:49 of the eighth in the final fight before the Sunny Edwards-Bam Rodriguez main event at Desert Diamond Arena.
“It’s been a long road back,” the Uzbekistani said. “I had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder.”
The chip is gone. A bright future is back.
Galal Yafai wins unanimous decision
-He has an Olympic gold medal, an unbeaten record and a lot of work still to do.
Galal Yafai (6-0, 4 KOs), the 2020 Olympic flyweight champion from the UK. Yafai scored a business-like decision over Rocco Santomauro (22-3, 6 KOs) Saturday night on the DAZN portion of the Sunny Edwards-Bam Rodriguez card at Desert Diamond Arena.
Yafai was never in danger of losing. The 99-91, 98-93, 97-93 scorecards, all in his favor, reflect that. He left Santomauro, a Califorina flyweight, badly bloodied over one eye. But he didn’t do much to convince anyone in the crowd that he’ll be a major flyweight title anytime soon.
They applauded the victory, then booed him for a dull performance.
Boom, DAZN lives-stream opens with a huge KO
One punch from Ja’Rico O’Quinn kicked DAZN’s live-stream into high-gear.
It happened suddenly.
It landed like an unseen bolt.
Peter McGrail was down, unconscious seemingly before he knew what hit him.
O’Quinn, of Detroit, was losing on the scorecards through the first four rounds Saturday on the first DAZN-streamed fight on a card featuring Sunny Edwards-Bam Rodriguez. McGrail controlled the pace and the punches.
Then — boom, O’Quinn (8-1, 5 KOs) threw a counter-right that landed like a missile onto the side of McGrail’s face, sending the Brit (17-1-1, 9 KOs) crashing to the canvas and under the lowest rope late in the fifth round.
HIs cornermen, ringside physician, and paramedics rushed to help. For a few scary moments, he simply laid on his back. Then he was helped, first onto a stool and then to his feet..
“I knew they wouldn’t give me a decision,” O’Quinn said. “He was boxing well. But I seen him try to throw a right to the body. That’s when I countered and — boom — that’s all she wrote
Boom, indeed.
Prospect Arturo Cardenas wins 4th-round TKO
Arturo Cardenas, a Robert Garcia-trained super-bantamweight from Mexico, continued to combine power, precision and poise in his journey from prospect to contender Saturday in a thorough beat down of Carlos Mujica, a Las Vegas fighter who never had much of a chance.
From head-to-body, Cardenas (2-0-1, 8 KOs) landed punches from all angles, leaving Mujica (8-4, 2 KOs) defenseless and finally beaten, a TKO loser at 1:24 of the fourth round in the fourth fight on the Sunny Edward-Bam Rodriguez card. at Desert
Diamond Arena
Bostan wins, fans boo in hostile brawl
They exchanged profanities. Then, their respective camps brawled.
Turns out, the hostility at a news conference was real.
Junaid Bostan and Gordie Russ II don’t like each other.
Proof was delivered in a messy, junior-middleweight fight Saturday at Desert Diamond Arena on the Sunny Edwards-Bam Rodriguez undercard. They fought, they brawled, Russ (6-1, 6 KOs) hurt Bostan (8-0, 6 KOs) in the third, Bostan recovered and furt Russ in the seventh and again in the eighth.
Bostan, of the UK, won. The eight-round decision was probably closer than the three scorecards, 79-73. But Bostan’s unanimous decision didn;t settle anything. He stretched out a gloved hand, an offer of congratulations with a fist bump. But Ross, of Detroit, turned his back and walked out of the ring.
He might have been angry at the scoring. Some in the small crowd. They booed, and Bostan encouraged them too while standing at ringside for an interview.
“Go ahead, boo, go ahead,” he said, looking at the unhappy customers.
By then Russ was long gone.
Albert Gonzalez chops down Molina
That’s exactly what California featherweight Albert Gonzalez (7-0, 3 KOs) did, chopping down Mexican Albert Molina (9-3-1, 5 KOs), who collapsed onto the canvas in evident pain after sustaining a lethally precise body shot late in the second round of the second fight Saturday on a card featuring Jesse Rodriguez-Sunny Edwards at Desert Diamond Arena.
Molina, who rolled around the canvas for several seconds after the punishing shot from the Robert Garcia-trained Gonzalez, got up. But he was finished, a TKO loser at 2:24 of the second.
First Bell: Joe McGrail scores second-round TKO
A card stacked with UK fighters began with a British accent.
Joe McGrail, a featherweight from Liverpool, wasted little time, quickly flashing all of the reasons he’s a prospect with a second round TKO of Carlos Ortiz Jr. Saturday in the opener to a card featuring flyweights Jesse Bam Rodriguez and Sunny Edwards at Desert Diamond Arena.
McGrail (8-0, 4 KOs) dropped the overmatched Ortiz (8-5-2, 4 KOs), of Phoenix, twice in the first round and twice in the second, finishing him with a left hook at 2:40 of the second.