{"id":5509,"date":"2025-07-19T09:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T09:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/5509\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T09:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T09:29:09","slug":"cafu-confident-of-producing-unlikely-ko-upset-vs-rodriguez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/5509\/","title":{"rendered":"Cafu confident of producing unlikely KO upset vs. Rodriguez"},"content":{"rendered":"

WBO super flyweight crownholder Phumelela Cafu<\/a> is one of the sport’s most little-known champions, but the South African is ready for his breakout moment Saturday when he takes on The Ring and WBC champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez<\/a> in a title unification bout.
The matchup at The Ford Center in Frisco, Texas, will headline a Matchroom Boxing card on DAZN<\/a> and mark the United States debut for Cafu (11-0-3, 8 KOs), a 26-year-old with colorful hair who’s coming off a knockdown and 12-round split decision October win against former four-division champion Kosei Tanaka<\/a> in Japan.<\/p>\n

“I’m ready for this fight. This is everything I’ve ever dreamed of. Everyone is overlooking me, but I am cool with that,” Cafu said during a Thursday press conference. “I take nothing away from Bam, he’s a very good fighter. Everyone is going to see how great I am Saturday night. I believe I have the power to knock out everybody. He’s been down before.”<\/p>\n

Rodriguez is a minus-3000 betting favorite to beat Cafu, a plus-1110 underdog, according to DraftKings.<\/p>\n

“I’m expecting a tough fight either way, whether he stands there and bangs or boxes,” said Rodriguez. “I’m ready for whatever, coming 100% prepared. I’m ready to perform … I’m not overlooking him at all. I know it’s going to be a tough fight, but I am confident that my hand will be raised.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Such are the luxuries for the No. 7-ranked pound-for-pound fighter who’s wrecked Juan Francisco Estrada, Sunny Edwards, Srisaket Sor Rungvisai<\/a>, and Carlos Cuadras<\/a> over the last three years. <\/p>\n

“There is no reason for us not to be confident,” said Cafu’s trainer Colin Nathan. “Everyone in this arena, globally, and even in South Africa, is overlooking us. That’s OK. We have been in positions like this before. He’s not scared, he’s ready and mentally ready. <\/p>\n

“It’s a big moment for African boxing. He can dig deep and go into the trenches. Jesse is a great fighter, but everyone has their weaknesses, and we are going to exploit those weaknesses. We’re ready to shock the world on Saturday night.” <\/p>\n

Cafu promised he’s ready to go toe-to-toe against Rodriguez in front of an expected crowd of 12,000 fans \u2013 and stop him for what would be the leading candidate for the upset of the year. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“I’m ready for whatever he brings,” said Cafu. “I have a lot of experience, I’ll be there in front of him. He won’t have to look too hard to find me \u2026 I feel like I am going to knock Bam out. It won’t go the distance.”<\/p>\n

Manouk Akopyan is The Ring’s lead writer. Follow him on X and Instagram: @ManoukAkopyan. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WBO super flyweight crownholder Phumelela Cafu is one of the sport’s most little-known champions, but the South African…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,7427,7428,85],"class_list":["post-5509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-jesse-rodriguez","tag-phumelela-cafu","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}