Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez is a rising P4P star, but how high does he deserve to be right now?
The voters: Scott Christ, Wil Esco, John Hansen, Patrick Stumberg
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Others Receiving Votes: David Benavidez 4, Gervonta “Tank” Davis 2
Some minor changes up top especially with our voter pool losing a ballot, but not much difference this month.
(1) Naoya Inoue, (2) Oleksandr Usyk, (3) Terence “Bud” Crawford, (4) Dmitry Bivol, (5) Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, (6) Artur Beterbiev, (7) Junto Nakatani, (8) Kenshiro Teraji, (9) Canelo Alvarez, (10) Gervonta “Tank” Davis
My only internal debate this month was Bivol or Bam for that No. 4 spot. To celebrate Bam Rodriguez’s fantastic run at 115, 112, and now 115 again, I want to rank him higher, because an ambitious, young fighter like him, with his talent, doesn’t come along all that often. But you also don’t want to diminish Bivol just because Rodriguez is coming off of another big win. The argument is there, though, and it’s a fair one. Rodriguez has a top four case, and in an era where the top three is this strong, that says more than normal, even.
David Benavidez drops out for me, and Tank Davis is back in. Talent-wise, I think Tank really is a top five guy, but you just want to see the bigger, more significant opponents for Tank. I think we will with Lomachenko, but even then you can criticize Loma’s age if Tank wins. Shakur Stevenson is Tank’s greatest potential test at 135, I think, but there’s more time to do that, and Lomachenko is a bigger fight right now, commercially.
(1) Terence “Bud” Crawford, (2) Naoya Inoue, (3) Oleksandr Usyk, (4) Dmitry Bivol, (5) Jaron “Boots” Ennis, (6) Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, (7) Canelo Alvarez, (8) Artur Beterbiev, (9) Kenshiro Teraji, (10) Junto Nakatani
Some light housekeeping this month. Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez continues to prove his mettle by handing Juan Francisco Estrada the first stoppage loss of his career while grabbing another title. That’s enough to push him up my list while I’m going to slide Artur Beterbiev down a few slots after his latest injury, which has him on the shelf for the time being. Other than that everything else remains the status quo with the potential for some shake ups with upcoming appearances of Crawford and Ennis this summer.
(1) Naoya Inoue, (2) Terence “Bud” Crawford, (3) Oleksandr Usyk, (4) Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, (5) Dmitry Bivol, (6) Artur Beterbiev, (7) Kenshiro Teraji, (8) David Benavidez, (9) Junto Nakatani, (10) Gervonta “Tank” Davis
Subriel Matias is out, and Tank Davis takes his spot at the bottom of my order. More notably, Bam Rodriguez leaps up in my rankings, but not as far as most since I already had him at 6th.
I debated whether to jump him over Bivol and Beterviev or not. Even though Beterbiev is a Terminator, age is obviously catching up to him. And Bivol had a legendary 2022, but hasn’t really done much of note since then. Both of those light heavyweights are great, but idle, while Bam is ascendant. And Bam’s done more in the past seven months than some world champions accomplish in their entire career.
He’s not at that all-time-great level like the top three right now, but Bam is no less thrilling to watch, every time out, and he’s not even 25 years old yet. I can’t wait to see how high he rises.
(1) Naoya Inoue, (2) Oleksandr Usyk, (3) Terence “Bud” Crawford, (4) Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, (5) Canelo Alvarez, (6) Dmitry Bivol, (7) Artur Beterbiev, (8) Junto Nakatani, (9) Kenshiro Teraji, (10) David Benavidez
Jesse Rodriguez is special. Just an absolute master of his craft with speed, power, and one of the most visually pleasing styles I have ever seen. Even taking into account the inactivity that had all of us concerned, nobody does that to Juan Francisco Estrada. It genuinely felt wrong to see “El Gallo” go down like that, like the sort of hallucination that tells you you’ve had one too many and need to go take a cold shower.
If he keeps his head on straight and avoids drinking his own Kool-Aid, he’s got what it takes to be a generational talent. Tell me who I have to punch to make sure he and Nakatani cross paths in the next few years.
As for the rest of the lineup, Subriel Matias sadly lost his spot on the fringe of my list, while Gervonta Davis impressed enough against a solid operator to have me waffling on whether to toss him in at no. 10. In the end, though, I’ll give Benavidez some slack for fighting up in weight with a hand injury and still comfortably beating the aged-but-competent Gvozdyk.
