Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez knows the Naoya Inoue talk is getting louder, but he says his focus is fully on Antonio Vargas and another belt on June 13 in Glendale, Arizona.
Rodriguez, already a unified junior bantamweight champion, moves up to face WBA secondary bantamweight champion Vargas at Desert Diamond Arena. With a win, the expectation is that Bam could move directly toward a huge fight with Inoue, but Rodriguez insists he is not looking past the task in front of him.
“I’m not going to half-ass my workouts,” Rodriguez said after training at the Robert Garcia Boxing Academy. “I’m going to work each time I step into this gym. I’m getting better each time with the sparring I’m getting each camp. I’ll be ready to go fight night.”
Rodriguez says he has watched only limited clips of Vargas and trusts Robert Garcia’s team to handle the game plan. “You can go out and watch all the film in the world, and he can change his style up fight night,” he said. “That’s why I do no film studying of my opponents, and just go out there to see what they bring.”
Even as a heavy favorite, Bam is not treating Vargas like a formality. “A lot of people might not know who Antonio Vargas is, but my team and I know,” Rodriguez said. “He’s an Olympian, a world champion. We’re not taking it lightly at all.”
Rodriguez also watched Inoue’s recent win over Junto Nakatani and gave him full credit. “Inoue’s the pound-for-pound No. 1. He went out there and showed it,” he said.
Image Credit: The Ring