June 28, 2024; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Jesse Rodriguez steps on the scale during the weigh-in ahead of the Matchroom Boxing card on June 29, 2024 at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Mandatory Credit: Melina Pizano/Matchroom.
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By Norm Frauenheim
Jesse Rodriguez stands out for what he doesn’t do in a business otherwise full of gasbags and so-called influencers who pontificate more than punch.
Bam, a nickname, is the loudest thing about Rodriguez, a fighter as business-like as he is quiet. But don’t mistake the silence. Call him soft-spoken at your own peril. Many have, and all have been left senseless, if not speechless.
Rodriguez owns boxing’s proverbial bully pulpit, dominating with relentless pressure and precise punching. At ringside, there’s an old line about volume punching. That volume is how Rodriguez expresses himself. He turns it up — loud and lethal, then turns it down – clever and calculated – with a maestro’s sense of tempo that often ends in a beat down.
He answered Sunny Edwards’ trash-talking, unsupported allegations about PEDs with a punishing stoppage. A couple of fights later, Edwards retired, saying he no longer had the will to fight on. In response to the taunts, Rodriguez beat it out of him in a way only he could deliver.
After Edwards, he got up from a knockdown for a brutally efficient stoppage of accomplished Juan Francisco Estrada June, 2024 in Phoenix. Estrada waived a rematch clause, which was his way of saying a second chance offered no chance. He has fought only once since then.
Quiet, but impossible to ignore, an unfolding run to the top of a contentious game continues, this time in Riyadh Saturday when the 25-year-old Rodriguez (22-0, 15 KOs) attempts to add another piece to his Super Fly crown against Fernando Daniel Martinez, a 34-year-old Buenos Aires fighter, also unbeaten (18-0, 9 KOs).
Predictably, perhaps, the emerging Rodriguez has been getting less attention than anybody else on the Saudi card. It’s been built around David Benavidez and his aspirations to become the so-called next face of the game. For now, it all depends on if the Phoenix-born-and-forged fighter prevails in a light-heavyweight title defense against London’s Anthony Yarde.
Then, there’s Devin Haney in a fight to reassert himself and his place against welterweight belt-holder Brian Norman
Jr. on boxing’s developing marquee for 2026.
Rodriguez hasn’t exactly been ignored. But he goes into Saturday’s bout with credentials that neither Benavidez nor Haney has. In every pound-for-pound rating, he ranks higher. Only on the scale is he smaller. In any other world, he’s a main-event fighter, capable of drawing crowds of 10-to-12,000 in Phoenix or San Antonio, his hometown.
In Riyadh, he’s on the DAZN undercard, the second prelim on the four-fight live-stream topped by Benavidez-Yarde.
It’s reasonable to argue that an emerging pound-for-pound contender on an undercard isn’t good for the overall business. Why not Phoenix, or San Antonio, or any other city in the Southwest? Fans there have been left behind, almost forgotten. Forget them, and eventually nobody gets paid.
It’s a complaint that this corner in Arizona hears with mounting frequency. But it’s not one you’ll hear from Rodriguez, still quiet and ever stoic. He’s there for the Saudi money. It’s huge and it comes at an important time in Rodriguez’ life.
Rodriguez, already the father of an 18-month-old daughter, is expecting a son. He missed media workouts Wednesday in Riyadh. Instead, he monitored social media, an anxious dad awaiting his son’s birth on the other side of the world.
“We knew that our fight was gonna end up a day after his birth, so I was telling my girlfriend (Rebecca) to hold him as long as she can,’’ Rodriguez told SunSport in Riyadh. “But just before I came over here, they had mentioned that he might be born either tonight (Wednesday) or tomorrow (Thursday). This is all for them at the end of the day.’’
Motivation to fight, he went on to say, was now rooted in the need to provide for a growing family.
“I have to put food on their plates and toys in their playpen,’’ he said, a quiet man saying it all.
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