It’s what every fight fan craves: relentless warriors engaged in all-action punching, each with everything to prove, each knowing everything is on the line.
Among the attendees who saw it, one likely future champion described it as “one of the best sessions” of boxing he has ever witnessed.
Except that no pay-per-view cameras were rolling. No announcers were talking. Odds are, there were more chickens nearby on the rural land than people watching.
Still, the quality of fighting that has occurred in the ongoing sparring sessions between Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, 23, and Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, 36, have been nothing short of stirring, according to the few who have witnessed the weekly rounds.
“The last one was eight rounds of nonstop action – it had to be each throwing 100 punches every round,” trainer Robert Garcia said.
It was Garcia who summoned the legendary Nicaraguan “Chocolatito” to the trainer’s Riverside, California, compound so that Rodriguez (19-0, 12 KOs) could advance his preparation beyond the typical roadwork, conditioning and stylistically friendly sparring partners that might otherwise be lured for a bout.
This next bout for Rodriguez is different than the others. It’s a high-profile showdown June 29 in Phoenix against Mexico’s ruthless Juan Francisco Estrada (44-3, 28 KOs), the WBC junior bantamweight titleholder defending the belt he wears thanks to two razor-thin decision victories over the four-division champion and former pound-for-pound king Gonzalez (51-4, 41 KOs), most recently in December 2022.
Was that trilogy war taxing? Neither man has fought since.
Garcia said his reasoning for retaining Gonzalez was two-pronged.
“Not only did ‘Chocolatito’ fight ‘Gallo’ [Estrada] three times, but I get to put Jesse in against a guy he’s never faced and never will,” the trainer said. “That gives each of them extra incentive to just do so much more in there. The work I’m seeing, the speed of the punches … it’s as intense as anything I’ve seen.”
Unbeaten junior middleweight Vergil Ortiz Jr. (21-0, 21 KOs), who watched one of the Rodriguez-Gonzalez battles, told Garcia he was awed by the quality of the boxing and the mutual toughness.
“We are preparing for our toughest fight,” Garcia said. “We know everything changes, in that ‘Gallo’ will bring out the best in ‘Bam.’ So that’s what ‘Chocolatito’ is doing: bringing out the best in ‘Bam.’”
San Antonio’s Rodriguez previously stood as a junior bantamweight champion by defeating veteran former world titleholders Carlos Cuadras and Srisaket Sor Rungvisai before returning to flyweight and becoming a unified champion in his most recent bout, when he stopped England’s Sunny Edwards in the ninth round in December in Glendale, Arizona.
Estrada has piled up victories over Gonzalez, Cuadras and Sor Rungvisai, too, and hasn’t lost since a majority decision defeat against Sor Rungvisai in 2018.
It has all the makings of a hellacious scrap set in the backdrop of the hellacious desert heat.
What better way to prepare than to enter the fire brought by “Chocolatito”?