Comments Thread For: Bam Rodriguez eyes May return, unification and then Junto Nakatani, says trainer

[BoxingUpdates]

Junior bantamweight titleholder Bam Rodriguez could return to the ring in a May unification fight before turning his sights to a step up against bantamweight titlist Junto Nakatani, according to his trainer Robert Garcia
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[BrankoB]

Bam is a warrior so when he says he wants these fights, I really believe him and more importantly it is highly probable that these fights will eventuate. Mouth watering prospect of seeing the best fight the best. Just the possibility of facing Nakatani is incredible, never mind Inoue.

[archiemoore1]

Bam is a bad man, indeed. I have to make it a point to go to one of his live fights and sit up close. I traveled once all the way to Arizona from NY and sat down and watched Antonio Margarito vs. Hercules Kyvelos, and Rafael Marquez vs. Pete Frissina. They were both in their prime

[Elheath]

Not to be a pessimist but the chance of unification in May seems very slim unless Matchroom is willing to overpay by a ton to make the current ongoing negotiations canned between Puma and Ioka, and otherwise opponents won't be available.

The IBF has a rematch purse bid coming up end of this month to determine the vacant winner between Garcia and Calixto, which likely will happen in March-April at the earliest making May impossible.

Cafu is near finalized to fight Chocolatito in Nicuaragua on March and the winner has a rumored fight with Tanaka in the summer (Teiken who has co-promotional agreement w/both overpaid them with the caveat that the winner fights in the summer Japan card).

Martinez is aiming to redo the canned Ioka rematch on March. I guess this is the easiest to potentially try to get but Martinez is gonna look rather ****ty after last-minute cancelling the Ioka fight the day prior due to flu then deciding to go toward Bam.

[Knuckle sandwich]

Nothing wrong with some over optimistic enthusiasm, the junto fight happen sooner than later, as for the Inoue potential match up we shall see.

[Left Hook Louie]

it is highly probable that these fights will eventuate.

Bring the lexical erudition!

[BoxerFreddy]

If Bam would beat Martinez and Nakatani, he would clearly be top 5 p4p, and would challenge Crawford and Beterbiev/Bivol if those wins were dominant. This guy is fearless, so refreshing to see and its why he should clearly be above guys like Tank, Shakur, Canelo etc.

[JonDP]

He and his team have carved out a niche finding and fighting old, big-name fighters in those lower weight divisions to brutalize, but he hasn’t answered all the questions. If he were to get past Martinez in the same handy fashion as he has the old fárts, then I could picture him being a threat to Nakatani at 118.

[crimsonfalcon07]

He and his team have carved out a niche finding and fighting old, big-name fighters in those lower weight divisions to brutalize, but he hasn’t answered all the questions. If he were to get past Martinez in the same handy fashion as he has the old fárts, then I could picture him being a threat to Nakatani at 118.

Estrada was Ring champ and still on many P4P lists not long before their fight. Sunny Edwards was in his prime and #1 in his division when they fought. Cuadras is the weakest of the big wins (still ranked #6 by Ring at the time), but remember that Bam was at 108 and got 10 days notice for that fight. He came up 2 weight divisions on short notice for that win. Sor Rungvisai was #1 ranked behind the champ Estrada at the time of fight. Don't disrespect the legends. They were universally acknowledged at the top of the division when he fought them. The only reason that Bam wasn't Ring champ after beating Sunny is that they refused to acknowledge his wins from 115 in ranking him at 112, as if Martinez or Dalakian were better than Cuadras and Sor Rungvisai.

That being said, it sure looks like Bam has been avoiding Nakatani, but they're both in their prime still, and on the P4P lists, so I'm hoping that fight happens soon.

[daggum]

Estrada was Ring champ and still on many P4P lists not long before their fight. Sunny Edwards was in his prime and #1 in his division when they fought. Cuadras is the weakest of the big wins (still ranked #6 by Ring at the time), but remember that Bam was at 108 and got 10 days notice for that fight. He came up 2 weight divisions on short notice for that win. Sor Rungvisai was #1 ranked behind the champ Estrada at the time of fight. Don't disrespect the legends. They were universally acknowledged at the top of the division when he fought them. The only reason that Bam wasn't Ring champ after beating Sunny is that they refused to acknowledge his wins from 115 in ranking him at 112, as if Martinez or Dalakian were better than Cuadras and Sor Rungvisai.

That being said, it sure looks like Bam has been avoiding Nakatani, but they're both in their prime still, and on the P4P lists, so I'm hoping that fight happens soon.

Based on what? You even said it in your own post that Bam came up in weight to fight cuadras. He had 3 fights at 115 and looked very poor against Israel gonzalez so he decided to go down to 112. Makes sense to me.

If you want to say he was avoiding the other guys at 115 that would be somewhat fair but nakatani wasn't even at 115 when bam decided to go down and it's pretty dubious to think oh nakatani will be great here so I better leave before he gets here? Don't think bam was molding his career around what nakatani was doing.

and if you look at the timeline nakatani vacated his 112 belt after Bams decision to go to 112 so if you wanted to be a fanboy you could say oh nakatani saw bam coming and got scared so he didn't stay at 112. Now that's not true because the same way bam wasn't molding his career around nakatani, nakatani wasn't molding his around bam and nakatani wasn't going to stay at a weight just to try and fight bam.

It's just a fight that never really lined up because nakatani left to 118 quickly because his body is growing and inevitably bam was going to move back to 115 since his body was still growing and since the bigger fights were there and nakatani wasn't a super fight at that time.

If bam wants to move to 118 and fight nakatani thats his option but not doing it isn't avoiding him just like if nakatani doenst go to 122 for inoue he's not avoiding him. Nakatani has plenty of good fights at 118 so let's see him try to make them because his resume is pretty mediocre so far. That Santiago win did not hold up since Santiago was at the top of the division only because he beat 40 year old donaire coming off a ko loss so that ranking was dubious to start, then Santiago lost to nakatani, then lost his next fight to a random novice.