Often in boxing, great fighters never get the opportunity to cement their legacy and finish their careers with questions left unanswered about their skill level. Thankfully this is not the case for Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, who already, at the age of only 23, has now beaten three world champions with relative ease. This past weekend, he systematically shut down every aspect of Sunny Edward’s game to claim the IBF 112lb title in a performance for the ages.
Jesse Rodriguez v Sonny Edwards Technical Breakdown
Although Rodriguez’s performance was marked by variety, it was defined by his jab. Unlike Edwards, who almost exclusively threw his flick jab, Bam knew when to both paw with his lead hand and when to commit hard to a stepping punch. It was often when Edwards would throw his flicking jab from the hip that he hoped Bam would be lured into throwing a power shot that he could evade and counter.
Instead of this Rodriguez would sit down on a stiff jab of his own, punching with Edwards in order to land. When Edwards was not punching, Rodriguez would use shoulder feints before he jabbed to draw a reaction out of Edwards before any punch had been thrown, leaving Edwards out of position when it did come. When Edwards was Orthodox Bam would continually jab at the lead hand and the body of Edwards to manipulate him into moving his hands away from his face to open up his power shots. Whenever Bam threw the jab it was either to hurt Edwards or to set up something else that would hurt him.
Going into the fight, Edwards seemed as though he would present difficulties for Rodriguez because his movement-based style was one that Bam had struggled with in his last 2 fights. Rodriguez showed from the first round that he had the correct strategy this time by continually firing the left straight to the body. Edwards, worrying about head punches, either used his head movement, moved his feet or covered up and was unable to stop the shot from reliably getting through. In a fight that was inevitably going to have so much offensive variety, Rodriguez showed discipline early with his investment to the body knowing that it would set up his offence as the bout went on.
Later in the Fight…
As the fight progressed Rodriguez’s investments to the body paid off as they weakened Edward’s defensive awareness for punches coming upstairs. In a similar set up to the one used by Mick Conlan to drop Leigh Wood in their 2022 fight of the year, Rodriguez would lower his level as if to throw the straight left to the body again and instead loop a southpaw overhand over Edward’s guard. A classic example of “look low, go high”. This slight of hand trick had Rodriguez by the third round regularly landing what would ordinarily be a clumsy punch on one of the best defensive boxers in the world.
Positioning the Key
Crucially, Jesse Rodriguez’s strategy allowed him to get off his offence whilst maintaining his defensive responsibility. Not committing to his usual long combination punching early, Rodriguez was always in a position where he could take a step back and exit an engagement on his terms. Applying pressure by stepping towards Edwards, Rodriguez could also use a lead foot feint or a jab feint to draw a counter that could be stepped out of the way off. As Rodriguez was the one moving forward behind his jab, he afforded himself this luxury of being able to step back because the majority of the ring space was usually behind him. Conversely, Edwards was forced to exchange whenever he wanted to take the centre because unlike his other opponents, Rodriguez had fast enough feet to track him down when he tried to move off.
Although Sunny Edwards was not allowed to work his A game, he had some answers for what Rodriguez was doing. Early he was trying to counter Rodriguez’s body attacks and set ups by leaning back and throwing the check hook. He did have success with this punch and occasionally landed it as Rodriguez was exiting engagements. However, the punch works best as it side swipes an attacker who is recklessly moving forward, something Bam knew not to do. Often Edwards would find himself throwing the shot with nothing to show for it and leaving himself out of position to defend second phase attacks.
Smart Decisions Pay off
One of Edward’s other good decisions in the fight was to switch Southpaw. Although Edwards had claimed beforehand that he would fight orthodox to set up his right hand, the stance switch allowed his lead arm and shoulder to obstruct the path of Rodriguez’s left hand. It also allowed Edward’s to get his timing on his own left hand counters for a portion of the fight. Realising he couldn’t win the jab battle, he fully committed to both slipping outside of the jab to throw the left hand and trying to throw it over the top of the jab. Unfortunately for Edwards these shots only revealed that he could not hurt Bam. Once Jesse Rodriguez realised this himself he began to box more recklessly as there became less and less to lose for fighting carelessly.
As the fights progressed into the mid-rounds, Bam started to exploit the strategy that commentator and former world champion Barry Jones called “first and third”. This involved using his jab to draw a counter out of Edwards and then countering said-counter with his own combination. At first, he was trying to make Edward’s shots completely miss and fire back with his own 2 or 3 punches. By the sixth round, Bam would simply cover up for the return and unload his own longer and more vicious combinations to both head and body. The more he realised that he didn’t need to respect what Edwards threw at him, the more he could fight with an offensive impunity.
The End is Near
In the final knockdown Rodriguez doesn’t even bother to cover up after throwing his jab and simply steps in with a basic 1-2 combination that he puts everything into with no care for what was coming back. In a contest between two elite boxers, the point in which one fighter is landing a free jab-right hand on their opponent with no consequence is almost certainly when the fight should be stopped. Although Edwards demonstrated that he had the toughness to continue, there was no point in prolonging the beating and his corner made an excellent decision to stop the fight.
This fight is now the third this year where a contest between great boxers which looked on paper like it was going to be competitive turned out to be completely one-sided. Both Inoue vs Fulton and Crawford vs Spence, instead of giving us a Hall of Fame fight produced a Hall of Fame fighter and this weekend was no different. As many have noted we need fighters on the level of Fulton, Spence and now Sunny Edwards to let us know that this generation of boxers contains all time great talent like Inoue, Crawford and the 23-year-old Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
