{"id":587786,"date":"2026-05-16T19:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T19:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/587786\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T19:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T19:33:09","slug":"robert-garcia-admits-there-is-one-man-who-would-have-beaten-jesse-bam-rodriguez-in-his-prime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/587786\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Garcia admits there is one man who would have beaten Jesse &#8216;Bam&#8217; Rodriguez in his prime"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Having previously trained Nonito Donaire, Robert Garcia has considered how his current charge, Jesse \u2018Bam\u2019 Rodriguez, would fare against the lower-division legend.<\/p>\n<p>Donaire became a multi-division world champion under the tutelage of Garcia, remaining unbeaten at the top level before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/boxing\/22141865\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">losing to Guillermo Rigondeaux<\/a> in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>The Filipino would then go on to compete in several featherweight outings, before dropping back down to 118lbs and facing Naoya Inoue in 2019.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/features\/your-say-inoue-vs-donaire-was-a-modern-classic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Their thrilling encounter ultimately saw Inoue claim a unanimous decision victory<\/a>, while their rematch in 2022 resulted in a second-round stoppage defeat for Donaire.<\/p>\n<p>Still fighting at the age of 43, \u2018The Filipino Flash\u2019 is considered one of the all-time greats at bantamweight, where \u2018Bam\u2019 Rodriguez hopes to become a three-division world champion in his next outing.<\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old will face Antonio Vargas, the WBA champion, on June 13, after having unified the super-flyweight division with back-to-back stoppages over Phumelela Cafu and Fernando Martinez.<\/p>\n<p>Victory could then see him enter an undisputed super-bantamweight clash with Inoue, who, like \u2018Bam\u2019, is widely considered to be a top five pound-for-pound star.<\/p>\n<p>As for a prime-for-prime showdown with Donaire, top <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TheSpitBucket\/status\/2054632028402839789\" rel=\"nofollow\">trainer Garcia has told The Spit Bucket Podcast that<\/a>, while Rodriguez still has time to prove him wrong, he would have to favour his former fighter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBam loves Nonito \u2013 Nonito\u2019s his favourite fighter \u2013 and Bam might not like it but I think I would pick Nonito.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBam still has at least three-four years left in his career. There\u2019s still so much that he\u2019s gonna show, that he\u2019s gonna do, that he\u2019s gonna accomplish.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNonito, with me, we accomplished a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Garcia recalls Donaire\u2019s second-round finish over Fernando Montiel in 2011 as a particularly memorable moment, while expecting \u2018Bam\u2019 to achieve similar success in his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having previously trained Nonito Donaire, Robert Garcia has considered how his current charge, Jesse \u2018Bam\u2019 Rodriguez, would fare&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-587786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}