by Keith Idec
PHILADELPHIA – Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez was his typical superior, pound-for-pound self Saturday evening.
The unbeaten WBC tremendous flyweight champion overwhelmed Pedro Guevara with strain and exact, punishing punches throughout their co-feature on the Jaron Ennis-Karen Chukhadzhian undercard at Wells Fargo Heart. Rodriguez (21-0, 14 KOs), a robust southpaw from San Antonio, dropped a reluctant Guevara (42-5-1, 22 KOs) twice within the third spherical and have become the primary opponent to beat the Mexican contender inside the gap.
“I actually didn’t count on that,” Rodriguez instructed DAZN’s Chris Mannix of Guevara’s motion. “I actually thought he was gonna stand there and struggle slightly bit extra. However proper when the bell rang, he began shifting so much. However, like I mentioned within the fighter assembly, I realized from these two fights, the place I didn’t look nearly as good and improved tonight.”
Rodriguez referred to his two earlier victories, stoppages of Mexico’s Juan Francisco Estrada (44-4, 28 KOs) and England’s Sunny Edwards (21-1, 4 KOs) that solidified Rodriguez as one in all boxing’s prime 10 fighters, pound-for-pound.
Guevara, 35, wasn’t almost as formidable as Estrada or Edwards. In contrast to these two boxers, nevertheless, Guevara took a cautious strategy to Rodriguez and couldn’t hold the aggressive offensive fighter off of him.
The sharper, stronger Rodriguez stalked Guevara from the time the opening bell rang, till his vicious proper uppercut left him rolling round on the canvas. Referee Ricky Gonzalez stopped the struggle at 2:47 of the third spherical, as quickly as Guevara went down for the second time.
Rodriguez first dropped Guevara with a left that knocked him on his aspect with 41 seconds to go within the third spherical. Twenty-five seconds later, he went down once more and couldn’t proceed.
Within the bout earlier than Rodriguez’s simple victory, former WBA featherweight champ Raymond Ford dominated Puerto Rican southpaw Orlando Gonzalez on his method to a transparent factors victory of their 10-round junior light-weight bout.
Ford (16-1-1, 8 KOs), a southpaw from close by Camden, New Jersey, landed an array of overhand lefts, stiff jabs and proper hooks to the physique whereas he managed the motion. Judges Robin Taylor and Tony Lundy scored the motion a shutout for Ford, 100-88 apiece, whereas choose Dewey LaRosa credited Gonzalez with successful one spherical (99-89).
A proper hook by Ford knocked Gonzalez (23-3, 13 KOs) to the seat of his trunks a number of seconds earlier than the eighth spherical ended. Gonzalez obtained up, although, and, with blood flowing from his nostril, made it to the ninth spherical.
An aggressive Ford tried to cease him in the course of the ninth and 10th rounds, however a recreation Gonzalez survived to the ultimate bell.
Ford fought for the primary time since England’s Nick Ball beat him by cut up determination to take the WBA 126-pound championship from him June 1 at Kingdom Enviornment in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
