Just under five years ago, Julian Rodriguez stepped into the ring as an undefeated betting favorite against two-division former champion Jose Pedraza with a massive opportunity on the line. Eight rounds later, Rodriguez was forced to quit on his stool, unable to see out of his left eye. Rather than seeing those big opportunities come to fruition, Rodriguez, who fights at Zuffa Boxing 06 on Sunday, found himself adrift and forced to rebuild his career.
The night Rodriguez fought Pedraza, he was 21-0 and promoted by Top Rank, the promotion that also had Teofimo Lopez Jr. in its stable. Speaking with CBS Sports, Rodriguez stated that he’d been told a fight with Lopez was the likely next step if he could get by Pedraza.
Unfortunately, a series of issues outside the ring, as well as entering the bout with an injury, upended those plans.
“I had a lot of things falling in on me outside the ring, including injuries and family divorces that really affected me. So, it may sound crazy, but like that loss didn’t affect me in a negative way at all compared to what I was actually dealing with in my life, and I knew at the end of the day I made some mistakes going into that fight,” Rodriguez stated. “Instead of pulling out of the fight, I had fractures in my ribs, and I just felt like, you know what? Finally, my company is starting to promote me, and there’s a lot of great things now that I’m starting to see some motion and momentum.
“I kind of just tried to bulldoze through the injury. And I kind of thought of it like, ‘well, this is going to be my Michael Jordan flu game,’ and, you know, it’ll be a cool story to tell, but I didn’t have a camp at all, man, and that really affected my mindset.”
After eight hard-fought rounds, Rodriguez found himself unable to continue and retired on his stool. At the time of the stoppage, the fighters were separated by a single round on all three official scorecards.
“A lot of people who have watched me for many, many years know that from the first second round, they knew something was up,” Rodriguez stated. “But I remember being in that ring, and I think it was the fourth or fifth round, and I remember saying to myself, like, ‘Oh my God. Like, it feels like I’m punching in a dream, like I’m punching underwater.’ Like, you know, when you get into a fight in a dream and there’s no impact. It was just like, and I stated this to myself in the ring, ‘Oh my God, look how not focused I am. Let’s go get in the fight.'”
The Pedraza fight was the last on Rodriguez’s Top Rank deal. The promotion had an option to add onto the contract had Rodriguez managed to get the win, which may have meant a fight with then-unified lightweight champion Lopez. Instead, Lopez would defend his titles later that year against George Kambosos Jr., with Kambosos winning in a shocking upset.
Rodriguez was now without the backing of a major promoter and split from his management, being forced to win a few tune-up fights during what Rodriguez called his “growth period.”
After picking up a pair of victories, Rodriguez got the call to step back into the spotlight. Rodriguez, once the favored undefeated prospect facing a tough veteran, found himself positioned as little more than an “opponent” for undefeated prospect Avious Griffin.
Griffin was one of the big signings for Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions, and the fight would take place on the pay-per-view card for Paul’s fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. In the build-up to the fight, Paul spoke disrespectfully of Rodriguez, saying things such as “I’m the promoter, and I don’t even know your f—ing name.”
With five seconds left in the fight, Rodriguez celebrated as -850 favorite Griffin couldn’t rise to his feet after a knockdown.
“I was ready at that point, you know?” Rodriguez stated of entering the Griffin fight as a massive underdog. “From what I saw and based off his demeanor and his lack of experience, a lot of these guys, man, they fight one way. They don’t have a lot of different tools. Yeah, he has power, but he has no footwork, he has no head movement, he has no defense. And there were times where he was struggling and getting hurt with these guys that are nowhere near my level and nowhere near his level. So, it was just a matter of dissecting.”
Four years after the lowest moment in his career, Rodriguez had reminded not only himself, but the boxing world at large, who he was.
Still adrift in boxing’s complex promotional landscape, Rodriguez was a beneficiary of the emergence of Zuffa Boxing, signing with the upstart promotion and given a spot on the main card of Zuffa’s inaugural event.
Once again, Rodriguez was in with an undefeated knockout artist in the form of Cain Sandoval. And, once again, Rodriguez entered the fight as an underdog, this time at +130, though the line came down significantly after opening at +290.
In the standout bout of Zuffa Boxing 01, Rodriguez won nearly every round against Sandoval in an entertaining action fight.
“I could have done so many things better in that Cain fight, but I played it too safe,” Rodriguez stated. “I won pretty much every round. He didn’t have heavy hands, but he put a lot of pressure, and I just had to make sure to exploit the things that I knew I could exploit against someone like that. He fought in one gear the entire fight. He didn’t know how to adapt to anything. When he has me cornered, I’ll work my defense. Let him miss a few shots. Pop shot him at one or two, to get the crowd going and to really establish the effective interaction, you know, to be the A side with that.
“I just felt so good in there, but I did play way too safe in that fight. But that was my mindset, to stay clean and to make sure I got the win. And I’m at that point, I was still letting off a lot of rust that I felt like I had at that time.”
Rodriguez is once again set to face an undefeated prospect, paired with 21-0 James Perella on the main card of Sunday’s Zuffa Boxing 06 on Sunday.
This time, it seems the oddsmakers have learned their lesson about underestimating Rodriguez as he currently sits as a -1400 favorite.
Rodriguez believes everything is finally clicking for him, both in the ring and in his career, and that it will show in the ring.
“I’m just more aligned this camp,” Rodriguez stated. “I did my eight weeks here in Vegas, sparring has been great, I feel great. The mental, physical, and spiritual are all aligned, man, you know what I mean? And now it doesn’t really matter what the opponents are bringing to the table. It doesn’t matter if it was a Cain 2.0 or James Perella. I have the tools to adapt to anything I see in that ring, and all my tools are sharpened right now. So whatever he wants to bring on fight night, not only am I going to be ready for it, but I’m going to shut it down.”
While Rodriguez refused to truly look beyond Sunday’s bout with Perella, he has his eyes on becoming a centerpiece for Zuffa Boxing, as well as a goal of winning welterweight gold.
” [Zuffa is] definitely going to take over the sport,” Rodriguez stated. “I’m just going to say that for sure. The goal right now, as far as thinking about Zuffa, is to be the first welterweight Zuffa champion. I have also personal goals and career goals and things like that, but one step at a time. All those things will happen in due time, and sometimes they happen quicker than expected. I focus on my opponent. I focus on just being aligned. I don’t focus on the lights and what’s going to happen in the next year. I don’t I don’t do that. It’s easier for me to just focus on one thing, and that’s on Sunday night, and that’s James Perella.”
