FRISCO, Texas – Far too often, talks of fights to be made down the road overtake a bout that is already on a fighter’s plate.
Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez and the team at Matchroom Boxing were pressed with the exact opposite scenario heading into this fight week.
Up next for Rodriguez, the 25-year-old two-division champ from San Antonio, is a WBC-WBO 115lbs unification bout with South Africa’s Phumelele Cafu, 11-0-3 (8 KOs), here on Saturday. There is no concern about what’s next with a win, since that part was already announced by a source external to Saturday’s DAZN show from The Ford Center at The Star.
With a win, Rodriguez will next face WBA titleholder Fernando “Pumita” Martinez, 18-0 (9 KOs), on a Turki Alalshikh-funded November 22 supercard in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
However, 100 per cent of the focal point was on the task at hand this weekend.
“First of all, it would be disrespectful to Cafu to talk about any other fight than this one,” Matchroom Boxing chairman Eddie Hearn, Rodriguez’s co-promoter, told BoxingScene. “We’ve got to keep Jesse focused on who’s in front of him right now.
“You’ve got to keep planning a fight, but really this one came out of nowhere. It makes things a little awkward, because we all know it’s there. But probably just a little extra incentive for Jesse – not that he ever needs it.”
Rodriguez is at least a -2500 favorite to prevail this Saturday. The betting line is perhaps even more disrespectful to Cafu than knowing his opponent’s next fight is already lined up.
Cafu will be fighting in the US for the first time in his career and in his second straight fight outside of South Africa. The previous road trip produced his biggest win to date, an upset split decision over four-division titlist Kosei Tanaka to win the WBO 115lbs title last October in Tokyo.
Simply put, Cafu is not the type of fighter to be overlooked. That’s not at all a concern to Rodriguez, who is able to compartmentalize and solely focus on the task at hand.
“Cafu is a dangerous opponent,” Rodriguez told BoxingScene. “He’s coming off that big upset win over Tanaka in Tokyo. Mentally, he’s coming very prepared. He trained at full capacity to come here to Texas and do the same thing to me.
“I’m doing the same thing on my side. I’m just ready to go, ready for anything he’s trying to bring.”
While all of Rodriguez’s energy is geared towards this weekend and not at all on what’s to come, it’s a fair question to ask why the second fight was made before this one was done.
That part is out of Rodriguez’s and Matchroom’s control – at least to the extent of keeping alive the dream of unifying the 115lbs division before Rodriguez moves up in weight.
“In a more ideal situation, that [Martinez] fight is brought to the table after this weekend,” acknowledged Hearn. “We didn’t really want to make it before this fight, but basically we had to. Turki came along and said, ‘I want to make Bam versus Puma. I told him at the time, ‘Bam is fighting next week.’ He says, ‘I know. If he wins, I want this fight.’
“I said, ‘Great, can we talk about it after? He says, ‘No. Do you want the fight or not?’ So then, I had to speak to Robert Garcia [Rodriguez’s head trainer], and he then speaks to Jesse. Because Jesse says yes to everybody, it was easy to make. But then they wanted him in New York for the [July 11] press conference. We shut that down because he was still in camp for this fight.”
Ironically, Martinez was Matchroom’s original choice for Rodriguez’s first fight of 2025.
The bout was pursued at a time when it was believed that Martinez wouldn’t go through with plans for a rescheduled rematch with Kazuto Ioka. When their second fight was put back into play – and won by Martinez this past May 11 – Matchroom had to move on, which led to securing Cafu at the sake of landing a unification fight for Rodriguez.
“We actually nearly made that fight for Times Square [Alalshikh’s ‘Ring II’ card in New York City],” Hearn revealed. “Martinez is probably the most expensive opponent for Bam. He’s with PBC, he’s been to Japan twice and has two big wins over Ioka.
“Jesse’s at the point where his fights are a lot of money, which he deserves. We have to keep paying up, so it really suited us for Ring and Riyadh Season to pay up for the most exciting fight in the division. He deserves it, so that’s why it worked out the way it did.”
Just don’t expect Rodriguez to place his undivided attention anywhere other than on taking down Cafu and bringing two belts to his next fight.
“My original goal was to become undisputed,” Rodriguez told BoxingScene. “With these fights presenting themselves, my goal right now is just to take care of business and collect belts one fight at a time.”
