
Emmanuel Rodriguez outpoints Fernando Diaz, aims for another title
Emmanuel Rodriguez began his return journey to titleholder status with a unanimous decision over Fernando Diaz on Saturday at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Emmanuel Rodriguez: record, next fight and profile →

Emmanuel Rodriguez began his return journey to titleholder status with a unanimous decision over Fernando Diaz on Saturday at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

“When I announced my retirement, it was out of frustration,” Rodriguez tells Lucas Ketelle.

Emmanuel Rodriguez had hoped to turn his career around Saturday in Atlantic City, New Jersey, but it was visiting Connor Adaway who walked away with a career-best win.

In last Saturday’s “Brick City Fight Night Series” in Newark, New Jersey, Khalid Twaiti, Danny Gonzalez and Kristian Prenga each triumphed in separate bouts on the undercard.

A purse bid to stage the IBF bantamweight title eliminator between Puerto Rico’s former champion Emmanuel Rodriguez and Mexico’s Jose Salas Reyes was won Tuesday by Puerto Rico-based Fresh Productions for $120,500.

Newly crowned IBF bantamweight champion Ryosuke Nishida won his title in the trenches, with a hard-fought decision over Puerto Rican star Emmanuel Rodriguez, and Nishida’s matchmaker Mike Altamura admitted he had not expected that kind of “warfare.”

The impact that Naoya Inoue has made since turning professional a little under 12 years ago is startling, even more so when you attempt to rate his 10 finest performances.

Japan’s Ryosuke Nishida defeated Emmanuel Rodriguez to become the new IBF bantamweight world champion in just his ninth professional fight.

It’s a tale of two cities this weekend in Japan as Tokyo prepares for Naoya Inoue-Luis Nery next Monday (May 6) and Osaka prepares itself ahead of Emmanuel Rodriguez-Ryosuke Nishida on Saturday (May 4). In 2019, Rodriguez lost the IBF bantamweight title to Japanese “Monster” Naoya Inoue, which he managed to recapture last year against Melving Lopez after Inoue had cleared out the bantamweight division. Pushing all of his chips in once again, Rodriguez goes to Japan to defend the same title against southpaw Nishida. Just two days and around 300 miles apart, Inoue also makes arguably the biggest bet of his career on May 6 against Mexican Nery in Tokyo, for all of his super bantamweight world titles.

Jason Moloney locks horns with Yoshiki Takei at a time when the bantamweight division will be in full swing. Moloney, 27-2 (19 KOs), will defend his 118-pound WBO world title against Japan’s Takei on the Naoya Inoue-Luis Nery undercard at the iconic 55,000 seater Tokyo Dome on May 6. On the same card Takuma Inoue puts his WBA bantamweight belt on the line against Sho Ishida, and old foe Emmanuel Rodriguez heads to nearby Osaka with his IBF title to face Ryosuke Nishida just two days prior.