THE leading under-25-year-old in world boxing, Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez, returns to action this weekend, co-headlining in Philadelphia, making the fourth defence of his world super-flyweight title.

Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis features in the main event in his hometown, however, his mandated rematch is hardly worth talking about, after all he comprehensively outboxed his opponent just last year.

Rodriguez is in a proper fight, at least. One in which he can certainly added to his blossoming reputation.

In another era, the 24-year-old from San Antonio, Texas could well be considered the best of his generation. But, unfortunately for Bam, his accomplishments are cast beneath the shadow of three modern day greats.

Oleksandr Usyk, Terence Crawford and Naoya Inoue (in your own particular order) are the three multi-weight champions abreast every fight fan’s mythical pound-for-pound list.

But, make no mistake, Rodriguez features in everyone’s top 10.

Inside just 20 fights, the diminutive southpaw has won world titles in two weight class, defeated a handful of modern-day greats and, more often than not, left foes unconscious in the process.

WHAM BAM

In the last 12 months, Bam has unified belts at flyweight, taking Sunny Edwards’ unbeaten record with a ninth round TKO, before returning to super-fly to sink Juan Estrada in seven.

The year before he stopped Rungvisai in eight rounds too, making the first defence of the 115lb belt he took from former champion Carlos Cuadras at late notice.

This weekend he faces another former world champion in Mexican veteran Pedro Guevara, whose 42-4-1 record includes 22 knockouts and a run as light-fly champion of the world in 2015.

Guevara, 35, has never been stopped and the four losses and one draw on his card include four split decisions and one majority decision, plus three of those were international bouts too!

He did buck the trend last time out, to secure this title shot, defeating Aussie Andrew Moloney Down Under on a split decision in May.

But he finds Rodriguez a completely different animal than his previous foes. Despite both standing just five-foot-four, Bam has never looked small at the weight and carries serious power.

Guevara should have enough self-preservation to last until the later rounds. But eventually he’ll wilt to the power of the elite body-punching Texan, who’s mastery of angles is on another level.

In that main event, Boots Ennis battered Karen Chukhadzhian enroute to being upgraded to world champion last year, winning every round across all three judge’s scorecards.

Just because the Ukrainian (42-2) has gone away and won three on the road since – against subpar opposition – shouldn’t quantify a mandatory title shot with any governing body.

But this is boxing, as usual, punching itself in the face with a fight nobody needs or wants to see again being forced upon us.

Boots, already 32-0 but lacking any truly world class names on his ledger, needs a proper name to truly kick of his championship reign. This is not it.

A knockout to reward his hometown fanbase would be ideal. But more likely is another one-sided beatdown with the challenger’s only ambition to hear the final bell.

TIP: Rodriguez TKO 7-9 & Ennis on Points (again)

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