LAS VEGAS – Boxing isn’t meant to be delivered in a nice, shiny package. 

On the debut Zuffa Boxing card on Paramount+, welterweight Julian Rodriguez endured a car crash-type battle with previously unbeaten Cain Sandoval, winning a unanimous decision by convincing scores of 99-91, 99-91, 98-92 at the Apex.

“I won the fight clean, but he’s a dog,” Rodriguez said in the ring.

By setting up the aggressive, ever-charging Sandoval, 17-1 (15 KOs), with thought-out blasts, New Jersey’s Rodriguez, 25-1 (15 KOs), doubled down on his stunning 10th-round knockout victory of Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions’ product Avious Griffin in June.

It led him to call out Zuffa Boxing head Dana White for a welterweight title shot when the promotion turns to staging title fights, possibly later this year if the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act is passed by Congress.

Sandoval, of Sacramento, California, is trained by Hall of Fame cornerman Freddie Roach and built his reputation as the most entertaining fighter on Zuffa Boxing executive Tom Loeffler’s 360 Promotions in Southern California.

Rodriguez pressured the defensively liable Sandoval in the second round after absorbing the harder blows of the first round.

Sandoval pressured Rodriguez on the ropes in the third, but Rodriguez punched his way out of harm’s way, circling to a neutral corner where Sandoval unleashed a punch from hell that whizzed just over the ducking head of Rodriguez.

The fourth was an all-action affair, with Sandoval applying double-fisted pressure to the head and body before a hard right to the head by Rodriguez slowed him only momentarily. Rodriguez closed the frame with a hard left-right to the head.

“He has a giant fucking head, that guy,” Rodriguez said.

The action ascended in the sixth and seventh when Sandoval, who has proven he can rally from whatever, ate a left-right from Rodriguez surging off the ropes. Rodriguez then answered steady abuse from Sandoval by hammering him to the body with both hands.

The pair exchanged effective combinations in the seventh, with Rodriguez bouncing from the ropes off a left hand only to be greeted by a punishing Sandoval combination. Rodriguez paused, then dealt Sandoval a hard left-right to the head.

Rodriguez’s patience through the pain shined in the ninth, as he plucked scoring jabs to frustrate a tiring Sandoval.

“It’s part of life – overcoming adversity,” Rodriguez said. “I had to adjust. It takes fights like that to get me better.”