Rodriguez dominates, stops Edwards to unify flyweight titles
'Bam' dazzles in pound-for-pound caliber performance; Akhmadaliev punishes, stops Gonzalez in junior featherweight title eliminator
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Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez stamped himself as the No. 1 flyweight in the world and made his case for inclusion on the pound-for-pound list on Saturday night.
Rodriguez did so with a one-sided ninth-round knockout of Sunny Edwards to unify the WBO and IBF 112-pound world titles in the main event of a Matchroom Boxing card on DAZN at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
The performance was a return to the dominating Rodriguez who went from prospect to top-flight junior bantamweight in 2022 by defeating well-respected former champions Carlos Cuadras and Srisaket Sor Rungvisai in back-to-back world title fights.
However, in his next two fights, he was a bit shaky. There was a junior bantamweight defense against Israel Gonzalez and then Rodriguez gave up the belt and moved down to flyweight, where he won the vacant WBO title against Cristian Gonzalez in April but suffered a broken jaw in a difficult fight.
But he looked back in form against Edwards, who, like Rodriguez, was anxious to test himself against another unbeaten titleholder.
Rodriguez (19-0, 12 KOs), 23, a southpaw from San Antonio, his jaw healed, couldn’t have performed any better.
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