Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul has captured the attention of the sporting world, but pound-for-pound boxing star Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez isn’t among the interested.
“I don’t think it’s a real fight, to be honest,” Rodriguez said on Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “Mike Tyson, he’s old and he can get hurt, so I don’t think Paul is going to go out there and try to take his head off.”
Rodriguez believes the Nov. 15 bout will look more like an exhibition than a proper boxing match in which two fighters try to knock each other out. The 24-year-old also voiced concerns, shared by many, about how unsafe it could be for the 58-year-old Tyson to enter into a boxing ring with the much younger Paul.
But what certainly is a real fight is the test Rodriguez (20-0, 13 KOs) faces against Mexico’s Pedro Guevara (42-4-1, 22 KOs) this Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Guevara became the WBC interim champion with a split decision over Andrew Moloney in May in Moloney’s native Australia.
Rodriguez scored the best win of his career in June, when he survived a knockdown to become the first fighter to knock out decorated former champion Juan Francisco Estrada. The San Antonio native’s seventh-round stoppage of Estrada led to Rodriguez vaulting up many of boxing’s mythical pound-for-pound lists. Rodriguez ranks himself as No. 6 pound-for-pound, he said Wednesday.
Estrada and Rodriguez were supposed to have a rematch, but Estrada chose not to go through with a second fight, so the WBC super flyweight champion is fighting his mandatory challenger instead.
“I was already about a week and a half [into] training for [the Estrada rematch],” Rodriguez said. “So whenever he pulled out from the rematch, I just kept that same mentality; you know, to work my ass off like I was going to rematch him. So just every day in the gym, it was keeping that same mentality and working as hard — working just as hard — as when I fought him the first time. Especially now with my baby girl, I want to go out there and perform each night and just keep rising the rankings.”
Rodriguez shares a card with Jaron “Boots” Ennis in a dazzling doubleheader. Atop the show, Ennis defends his IBF welterweight title in an unnecessary rematch with Karen Chukhadzhian.
Rodriguez, a two-division champion, relishes the opportunity to fight in a different part of the country and in front of a different fan base, hoping to inherit some of Ennis’ supporters.
“At first I thought it was a little weird,” Rodriguez admitted, “just because I’ve never even been on the East Coast, so to come out here and fight as a co-main, it was different for sure. But once I thought about it a little bit, I realized it’s a good opportunity for me to go out there and expose my career to the East Coast fans and just different boxing fans in general.”
Ennis headlined in front of more than 14,000 supporters when he defended his crown for the first time in his July homecoming against David Avanesyan. The welterweight champ has sometimes been labeled a non-attraction, but that fight proved very differently, and Bam was one of the impressed viewers.
“Man, that thing was packed,” Rodriguez said. “That’s another reason why I was able to come out here and fight out here in the East Coast, just because I saw his turnout from last fight. So to be a part of something like that with a fighter like ‘Boots’ Ennis, it’s a huge opportunity for me to expose my career.”
Should Rodriguez take care of business Saturday, many big fights will await him.
Perhaps the most significant of them all is a potential showdown against Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue, who puts his four super bantamweight titles on the line against Sam Goodman on Christmas Eve morning. Rodriguez, however, doesn’t see an Inoue fight in his immediate future.
“That’s been a fight that’s been brought to me, spoken about for a couple years now,” Rodriguez said of Inoue. “People want to see it, they’re very interested in it. The performances both of us have been putting on, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
“But realistically, it’s not a fight being made anytime soon. He’s already at 122 [pounds], I’m still at 115. So I believe three or four years from now, it’s likely to happen more than now.”
