{"id":396079,"date":"2025-09-04T02:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T02:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/396079\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T02:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T02:13:11","slug":"jesse-bam-rodriguez-welcomes-free-agency-as-matchroom-deal-nears-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/396079\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez welcomes free agency as Matchroom deal nears end"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez<\/a> couldn’t be entering free agency at a better time.
The Ring,<\/a> WBC and WBO 115-pound champion is entering the final fight of his promotional deal with Matchroom Boxing as he prepares for his unification fight against WBA titleholder Fernando Martinez<\/a> on Nov. 22 in Riyadh<\/a>, Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

“The big thing with Bam is that this is going to be our last fight under contract with Matchroom,” Robert Garcia, Rodriguez’s trainer, manager and career-long confidant told The Ring. “So the doors are going to be open for Bam. It’s an important issue. We are going to have to be smart with what we are going to do next.<\/p>\n

“Bam is very happy with Matchroom, and so am I. But we definitely have to make sure that Bam is in a position where he can call the shots from now on.”<\/p>\n

Garcia emphasized that he likes Rodriguez\u2019s chances of stopping Martinez and moving on to collect the last-remaining belt at junior bantamweight against IBF titleholder Willibaldo Garcia Perez<\/a>. He’d become the undisputed king of the division before moving up to 118 pounds.
Matchroom chief Eddie Hearn is responsible for building Rodriguez (22-0, 15 KOs) into one of the sport’s most elite fighters<\/a>, signing the 25-year-old southpaw from San Antonio, Texas, after bounced around Top Rank, PBC and 360 Promotions shows as an up-and-comer.<\/p>\n

Matchroom announced the signing of Rodriguez in January 2022, right before he scored a unanimous decision against Carlos Cuadras as a late-replacement opponent in a title fight. <\/p>\n

The meteoric rise followed right after, as Rodriguez reeled off wins against Srisaket Sor Rungvisai<\/a>, Sunny Edwards, Juan Francisco Estrada, and most recently in July, against Phumelela Cafu<\/a>. Along the way, Rodriguez also became a unified champion at 112 pounds. <\/p>\n

In October, a week before Rodriguez beat Pedro Guevara, Matchroom announced they had extended his promotional deal, making him a leading force in its United States efforts alongside Jaron \u201cBoots\u201d Ennis.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez has also been linked to Teiken Promotions throughout his career, and the affiliation with the highly respected Akihiko Honda has prevented him from facing Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez and Junto Nakatani.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez is The Ring’s No. 6-ranked pound-for-pound<\/a> fighter.<\/p>\n

Manouk Akopyan is The Ring\u2019s lead writer. Follow him on X and Instagram: @ManoukAkopyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez couldn’t be entering free agency at a better time.The Ring, WBC and WBO 115-pound champion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,10188,10181,10187,10186,10179,4496,10182,10183,10184,10185,10180,10193,10192,10175,10173,10174,10190,10176,10172,10194,10189,79,10191,10171,10178,16,15,10177],"class_list":{"0":"post-396079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-results","18":"tag-boxing-schedule","19":"tag-boxing-videos","20":"tag-disqualification","21":"tag-draw","22":"tag-fight","23":"tag-fighter","24":"tag-fighter-news","25":"tag-knockout","26":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","27":"tag-ring","28":"tag-ring-magazine","29":"tag-split-decision","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-technical-knockout","32":"tag-the-ring","33":"tag-top-fighters","34":"tag-uk","35":"tag-united-kingdom","36":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115143613236404354","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}