Aided by his big brother, Joshua Franco, Jesse 'Bam' Rodriguez on verge of stardom
Joshua Franco was a teenager with a keen interest in boxing, and he would soon parlay that into an outstanding professional career. Franco is now 27 and holds the WBA super flyweight title. He fought WBO champion Kazuto Ioka on New Year's Eve in Tokyo for the unified championship. Though most observers felt Franco had won, it was scored a majority draw.
Among those disgusted by the outcome was Franco's younger brother by four years, Jesse Rodriguez.
Rodriguez, now 23, didn't have the passion for boxing that his older brother had, but as so often happens, Rodriguez tagged along to the gym with Franco one day. It wasn't long before Rodriguez himself knew he'd found his sport, and the path to stardom was born.
"Honestly, Josh is the reason I'm even boxing," said Rodriguez, who fights Christian Gonzalez on Saturday in San Antonio, Texas, on DAZN for the vacant WBO flyweight title. "I never used to watch it or even care about it. But he'd always been into it and always wanted to try it himself. When he started going to the gym, I went to watch him for a couple of weeks. I finally decided to try it and ever since, I loved having him around, having him in my camps. It's just always been a better environment when he's around."
Historically, a lot of the best fights in boxing have been produced by fighters at 126 pounds and under, but in the United States, those tend to be the divisions only the hardcore fans care about.
There have even in the last three decades been some all-time great fighters at 115 and below, such as Michael Carbajal, Ricardo "Finito" Lopez and Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez. But though they eventually built themselves into stars, they were never able to push those divisions forward and get boxing fans in large numbers to watch.
Junior flyweight, flyweight, super flyweight, bantamweight and super bantamweight have always attracted more of a cult following than a mainstream crowd.
As he's learned about boxing and watched the fights, Rodriguez realized that those who ignored the lighter weights were missing out.
"It's too bad but I guess it's because of the weight, a lot of people don't bother to watch," Rodriguez said. "Obviously, we're not attracting the casual fans, but they're truly missing out on the greater fighters. These are the weight classes where you see so much action and unbelievable fights. A lot of people say that they're better fights than the big pay-per-view fights [featuring much heavier boxers]."
Rodriguez, who is on the verge of the pound-for-pound Top 10, is one of those fighters with the ability to draw eyeballs to a division that normally is ignored by the masses. He's a slick boxer with plenty of pop, and is 17-0 with 11 KOs.
He's smart, aggressive and well-trained by Robert Garcia. If he defeats Gonzalez on Saturday — and he's a -3000 favorite to win and a -145 favorite to win by KO — he'll become a two-division champion. He owned a secondary title at 115.
When he was coming up, the plan for him was to try to reel off championships at 108, 112 and 115, and while making 108 is no longer possible, he makes 112 comfortably. If he cleans out that division, the possibility exists he'd once again be at 115 and in the same division as his older brother.
Just like brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko at heavyweight, Rodriguez and Franco will never fight each other.
The goal might be for them to be the undisputed champion, with Jesse owning two of the four belts in a division and Joshua owning the other two.
As for them squaring off nose-to-nose with all of the belts on the line, Rodriguez just laughs off the thought.
"Me and my brother have never bumped heads or even play fought," Rodriguez said. "We've always been real close and I see him as another father figure. He looks out for me whenever we're in camp. It's always been that kind of a relationship. Even as kids, we didn't fight at all."
Rodriguez can fight now, though, and better than most anyone you can name. If he gets past Gonzalez, there are plenty of attractive fights for him. Sunny Edwards, who holds the IBF belt, has been calling him out.
He's not sure what the future holds, and is focusing on putting on a show for his hometown fans in San Antonio. He said he's eager to fight the best except for one person.
"Even if it were a crazy amount of money, it wouldn't happen," he said of fighting his brother. "That's just the one fight you're never going to see."
