One of the best boxers in the world will attempt to add another title to his collection July 19.<\/p>\n
The Ring has learned Jesse \u201cBam\u201d Rodriguez will face Phumelela Cafu in a junior bantamweight championship unification fight that night at Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas. San Antoino\u2019s Rodriguez (21-0, 14 KOs) will defend his Ring and WBC 115-pound championships against South Africa\u2019s Cafu (11-0-3, 8 KOs), who owns the WBO belt.<\/p>\n
DAZN will stream the card headlined by Rodriguez, ranked No. 6 on The Ring\u2019s pound-for-pound list, and Cafu from the Dallas Cowboys\u2019 12,000-seat practice facility. Cafu is The Ring\u2019s fourth-ranked contender for Rodriguez\u2019s crown.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old Cafu won his WBO belt by upsetting Japan\u2019s Kosei Tanaka by split decision in Cafu\u2019s last fight October 14 at Ariake Arena in Tokyo. Tanaka (20-2, 11 KOs), who slipped to the fifth spot in The Ring\u2019s junior bantamweight ratings, was consistently listed as an 11-1 favorite to defeat Cafu.<\/p>\n
The left-handed Rodriguez, 25, most recently pummeled Pedro Guevara into submission November 9 at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Rodriguez dropped Guevara (42-5-1, 22 KOs) twice in the third round, the same round when referee Ricky Gonzalez stopped their scheduled 12-rounder on the Jaron Ennis-Karen Chukhadzhian undercard.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez hoped to battle IBF\/WBA champ Fernando Martinez next in a different title unification fight that would\u2019ve afforded Rodriguez the opportunity to add two more crowns.<\/p>\n
Argentina\u2019s Martinez (17-0, 9 KOs) instead accepted a rematch with Japan\u2019s Kazuto Ioka (31-3-1, 16 KOs), which is scheduled for May 11 at Ota-City General Gymnasium in Tokyo. Martinez won the WBA 115-pound crown from Ioka by winning a unanimous decision July 7 at Kokugikan National Sumo Arena in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
Martinez is The Ring\u2019s No. 1-ranked contender for Rodriguez\u2019s title.<\/p>\n
DAZN\u2019s co-feature July 19 is a super middleweight match between Los Angeles\u2019 Diego Pacheco (23-0, 18 KOs) and Trevor McCumby (28-1, 21 KOs, 1 NC), of Glendale, Arizona.<\/p>\n
Pacheco is The Ring\u2019s No. 2 contender in the 168-pound division. McCumby is not ranked among The Ring\u2019s top 10 at super middleweight.<\/p>\n
Keith Idec is a senior writer and columnist for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the best boxers in the world will attempt to add another title to his collection July…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62134,"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-62133","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\/114425302137403148","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62133","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=62133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}