Photo: Melina Pizano – ‘Scene’: Bam Rodriguez.
When Bam Rodriguez was about twelve years old, he was watching Juan Francisco Estrada face Chocolatito Gonzalez for the first time, in 2012 . . .
In 2024, seeing fighters of their size in a main event on television in the United States might still be notable, but it certainly isn’t unusual. The times that Bam grew up in, not all that long ago, were very different. In order to watch Estrada and Chocolatito face off, Bam had to subscribe to WealthTV, a niche network mainly focused on shows about opulence that decided to jump into the boxing broadcasting world for a few years. In other words, you still had to go looking for these fights, even though they involved the most skilled fighters on the planet.
As the boxing world was coming to terms with its acceptance of fighters in lighter weight classes, Bam himself was in the process of figuring out where he fit into the athletic world. In elementary school, he played running back in football alongside Ricky Medina, who would also one day become a pro fighter. As quick as Bam’s feet were and as much as he relished the physicality and contact, genetics were not going to work in his favor enough to get him to the NFL. Instead, along with his brother Joshua Franco, he gravitated to boxing, where size would always be relative, because weight classes exist.
What he found, and what his trainer Robert Garcia found, is that relative to fighters his own size, there are few men on the planet more dynamic and more destructive.
In fact, when Garcia saw Rodriguez destroy a fighter of his in the amateurs, the story goes, a lightbulb went off in his head. Not only did Rodriguez have the exact style and mindset that would gel with him as a trainer, but with his connections to Teiken Promotions in Japan for whom he once fought, he could help maneuver Rodriguez up the ladder with or without the help of the American marketplace.
Over the last two and a half years, Rodriguez has had a meteoric rise through the ranks, first stepping up two weight classes and in on short notice to take out Carlos Cuadras, one of the super flyweight division’s “Four Kings” of the era he grew up watching. Then he did the same to Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. Then in his most recent fight, landed over 60% of his power shots on Sunny Edwards, regarded as one of the sport’s top defensive specialists, and stopped him too.
The plan was finally fully executed last Saturday in rather surreal fashion. Twelve years after watching that fight on television, Bam Rodriguez knocked out Juan Francisco Estrada to become the true super flyweight champion.
In terms of “torch-passing” moments, this one couldn’t have been scripted any better than it unfolded in real life. Estrada, the long-reigning champion and surefire future Hall of Famer, might not have been the version of himself that fought Chocolatito in 2012, but it was a version of himself that would have taken out almost any other 115-pounder in the world. Leading up to the fight, Estrada spoke about how Rodriguez’s victories were perhaps overhyped, that his opposition was on the decline, something he insisted he was not.
Estrada was fighting perception, Father Time, and the possible successor on this night.
And fight, he did. Even when Rodriguez blitzed him early in the bout and dropped him in round four, Estrada was still attempting to make adjustments, trying his hand at inside fighting and later trying to find the bounce in his step to walk Rodriguez into counters.
In the fifth round, he found the shot he was looking for, the one that will in all likelihood be his last great moment inside a prize ring. Estrada stepped to the outside of Rodrigurez’s lead foot and landed a right hand that put Rodriguez on the floor for the first time in his career.
The Footprint Center which housed the fight was noticeably shaking when Rodriguez hit the mat. The crowd, a die-hard, mostly Mexican boxing audience that skewed in favor of Estrada got what they were waiting for.
The rise of emotion of everyone in the arena was palpable. In a matter of seconds, everyone’s heads filled with the same thoughts. Was Rodriguez not as good as we thought? Was Estrada just an all-time great so good that he could fend off another great even in the autumn of his career?
Those thoughts certainly didn’t enter Rodriguez’s mind as he rose to his feet. Before he even hit the canvas, there was a smile on his face, and a chuckle could be detected even amidst the raucous noise. Despite getting dropped, Rodriguez dominated the rest of the round, snatching the hope back from Estrada fans almost as quickly as he’d given it to them.
After the fight, Rodriguez told DAZN’s Chris Mannix that he’d always wanted to get knocked down to see what it felt like. It certainly sounds absurd, if not masochistic, to hear someone say they want to be hit and dropped. But just as a hockey player might dream of scoring the game-winning goal in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, which necessitates losing three games prior, Rodriguez merely dreamt of overcoming adversity on the biggest stage.
Two rounds later, Rodriguez landed a left hand to the body that sent Estrada rolling and writhing in pain for the count of ten.
The game plan, fittingly aided by Chocolatito himself who served as a sparring partner for Bam for a few sessions, and the career plan had all come to fruition in cinematic fashion.
