Jesse \u2018Bam\u2019 Rodriguez\u2019s scintillating performance on November 22, which crowned him a three-belt super-flyweight champion, was one of the finest virtuoso displays of the year.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez stopped Fernando \u201cPuma\u201d Martinez in the 10th round in Riyadh<\/a>, further enhancing his reputation as one of the world\u2019s elite fighters.<\/p>\n Only Oleksandr Usyk, Terence Crawford, Naoya Inoue<\/a> and Dmitry Bivol sit above him on most pound-for-pound lists. And at just 25, the Texan southpaw\u2019s future looks brighter than ever.<\/p>\n One fantasy matchup that continues to fuel debate is Rodriguez versus Naoya Inoue. The \u201cMonster\u201d has risen from light-flyweight to super-bantamweight, where he currently reigns as undisputed champion.<\/p>\n At 32, Inoue looked at his devastating best last time out in what was expected to be a stern test against Murodjon Akhmadaliev<\/a>. Speed, accuracy and power combined as the Japanese star dominated the Uzbek on his way to a wide points victory.<\/p>\n Rodriguez may move to bantamweight if he cannot secure an undisputed fight at super-flyweight against the remaining champion, Willibaldo Garcia.<\/p>\n Former two-weight world champion Timothy Bradley<\/a> \u2014 no stranger to upsets and defying expectations \u2014 urged caution over a potential \u201cBam\u201d vs \u201cMonster\u201d showdown when speaking to FightHype<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s weight classes for a reason. I know Bam is special. I think Bam is very skilful. I love his style. He\u2019s one of the best we\u2019ve ever seen. But the Monster is too mature right now, and he\u2019s continuing to get better.<\/p>\n \u201cThat speed and power of the \u2018Monster\u2019 is something else. That explosiveness is something else. Bam flows like water, but the Monster is sharp, accurate \u2014 and that\u2019s something to deal with. I think the Monster would be the favourite if they were to fight. That\u2019s no disrespect to Bam. I think Bam is a tremendous fighter, man. I just think the Monster might be too explosive.\u201d<\/p>\n Inoue returns to the ring to defend his 122lb championship against David Picasso on December 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jesse \u2018Bam\u2019 Rodriguez\u2019s scintillating performance on November 22, which crowned him a three-belt super-flyweight champion, was one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-321818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}