Eddie Hearn has shone more light on a proposed move to bantamweight for Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez.
Earlier this week, Hearn revealed to BoxingScene that the plan for Rodriguez, who unified the WBA, WBC and WBO junior bantamweight titles with a win over Fernando Vargas on November 22, is to not sit around and wait for the fourth, and final, belt. Willibaldo Garcia is the owner of the IBF strap, and will defend his title against Kenshiro Teraji on December 27 as part of the “Night of The Samurai” card in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The winner has been ordered to face mandatory challenger Andrew Moloney in their first defense, and Moloney is refusing to step aside, meaning Rodriguez would be forced to wait for “undisputed”.
“We'd love to be undisputed, but we're not going to hang around,” Hearn told BoxingScene. “So if we've got a fight, we can't fight the winner of Teraji against Garcia, then we need to move up and try and become a three-division champion at bantamweight.”
There has been movement amongst the bantamweight belts since unified WBC and IBF champion Junto Nakatani moved up to 122lbs. The vacant WBC title was recently won by Takuma Inoue with a win over Tenshin Nasukawa, whilst the IBF have ordered Jose Salas and Landile Ngxeke to contest their vacant strap. The WBA belt is currently held by Antonio Vargas, and the WBO title by Christian Median.
Hearn told BoxingScene earlier in the week that he would like Rodriguez to next fight in a San Antonio homecoming in early summer against one of the 118lb champions. But who could that be?
“Quite possibly Medina. It would be a good fight,” said Hearn.
