It may have been seen by a good many folks as a pretty disrespectful move on the part of the respective promoters to have announced a fight between Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez and Fernando Martinez for November, this in a unification fight at 115 pounds. Why? Because Bam has a potentially very tough fight to attend to first.
On July 19 (this truly a massive date for boxing this year, what with the Barrios-Pacquiao fight and it’s stacked undercard taking place that night, along with the huge Oleksandr Usyk-Daniel Dubois heavyweight unification clash), Rodriguez will face Phumelela Cafu in Texas. This fight, that will see Bam risk his WBC belt, with Cafu putting his WBO strap on the line, is absolutely no easy or straightforward win for Bam.
Why Cafu’s Unbeaten Record Demands Full Focus
South Africa’s Cafu, who is unbeaten at 11-0-3(6) has a tremendous engine and he, like Bam, chucks out a lot of leather. Having edged Japanese fan-favourite Kosei Tanaka to win the WBO belt back in October, Cafu, aged 26, is now as pumped up as can be as he approaches what he readily calls the biggest fight of his career.
So, Bam must take Cafu’s WBO belt and unbeaten record if he is to go into the November showdown with reigning WBA 115 pound champ “Puma” Martinez. But to repeat, this is no foregone conclusion, and it would perhaps have been better if the November fight had not been announced prior to July 19.
Bam, 21-0(14) is the favourite over Cafu, but is this perhaps down to the fact that Cafu is a somewhat unknown quantity? For sure, those of us who have seen Cafu fight know how good he is, how tough he is – how dangerous he is. Cafu really will take some shifting.
And Cafu has sent Rodriguez a stern warning ahead of next weekend’s fight.
“Bam, I’m fg coming for your head, bro. It all ends July 19th,” Cafu said after a workout in Las Vegas. “And the new unified super flyweight champion of the world! I’m ‘The Truth,’ baby, and I’m going to prove it to you all. Let’s fg get it!”
No fan should make the risk of sleeping on this fight, because if they do they may well miss something special: perhaps the toughest fight of Bam’s career to date. Surely, Bam, a true pro, will not be looking past Cafu, even if it seems as though a good many people are.