Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez in seventh heaven after blistering performance against Juan Francisco Estrada
Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez knocked out Juan Francisco Estrada in the seventh round to win the WBC junior bantamweight title Saturday night, June 29, at the Footprint Center in Phoenix in a candidate for fight of the year.
Rodriguez (20-0, 13 KOs), who entered the fight as the favourite, had the experienced Estrada in trouble as early as round three after landing an accurate right uppercut. Estrada recovered well, but in the fourth, Rodriguez knocked him down with a perfect left uppercut, straight left combination.
Bam, 24, kept landing his punches in the next round, all set up by his lead jab. Another straight left pushed Estrada to the ropes, and the uppercut and left hand kept landing flush. Rodriguez’s speed and power were superior to Estrada’s.
Though Rodriguez appeared to be in total control, Estrada, 34, dropped him in the sixth round with a straight right hand set up by two lead jabs. Rodriguez recovered well and continued landing his left hand and right uppercut.
With just seconds to go in the seventh, Rodriguez landed a left hook to the body that sent Estrada to the canvas. Estrada was visibly in pain and couldn’t recover in time.
“I got him with a good body shot,” Rodriguez said during the postfight interview. “I saw the way he was rolling on the floor. I knew that was it.
“I thought he was going to get back up, so I was already mentally prepared to go on to the next round, but I mean he stayed down and that was it.”
Briton Sunny Edwards defeated Adrian Curiel on a technical decision after nine rounds, to get back to winning ways after losing for the first and only time to the headliner Bam last December.